Vengeance Is Mine
by Cainwen the Warrior
Summary: On the Drilling PlatformSubmersion, Mairghread finds the Queen is her family's murderer, and the suggestion that not all of her siblings died at her hand. But will her family be avenged, and is the last of her siblings past hope of healing? Mature themes
1. Descent

**Descent**

* * *

"Hey, Mary, you okay?"

I am startled by the question, but I flash John a smile and reassure him that I am fine. I do not tell him of the sinking sensation in my stomach, or the tingling I feel on the edge of my mind, as though another wraith were close, but as yet…dormant. Instead, I return to staring into space, because there is not much else to look at where I am, sitting on the floor behind the chair where Dr. Weir sits and at Dad's feet.

"She's probably bored out of her skull."

I try not to laugh at Dad. He does not do well when there is nothing _to_ do. I must find something to keep his mind occupied on trips in the Jumpers.

Mum comes up the front and taps Rodney on the shoulder. He looks up, and she murmurs, "Um, shot gun…is it?"

"Oh, come on," he cries exasperatedly, but when Mom continues to smile calmly at him, he has no choice but to switch seats with her and move to the back of the Puddle Jumper with the rest of the scientists. "I don't know why I have to do this….What?"

Zelenka sounds deceptively innocent. "Nobody said anything."

"You don't _have_ to, do you? Look, it's not _my_ fault things are hard to find on the bottom of the ocean."

Poor Dr. McKay. It really _isn't_ his fault. Things on the bottom of an ocean will tend to drift in 10,000 years, especially with the terrible hurricanes that this ocean in subject to every now and again. But it is far easier to blame a man than an ocean.

"Rodney, you said you knew where it was," Radek reminds him, his accent only serving to amplify his air of long-suffering patience.

"I _said_ I knew its last known location. It is a _mobile_ drilling station, remember? Obviously that's gonna take a few hours," counters Rodney testily. No one in this jumper, with the possible exception of Ronon, is more anxious than he to find the station. He is no better at sitting still than my dad, and he is anxious for the nearly limitless energy it promises.

"If we don't find it soon, this is gonna be _your_ last known location," snarls Ronon, and I place my hand on his knee, trying to calm him. My dad is a wonderful man, but his temper is short, and his patience worn thin by inaction and endless talk.

"Oh, zing!"

"Okay, kids. Do I have to pull this thing over? It's hard enough being in this damned thing for hours without listening to you guys," John shouts irritably over his shoulder as he guides us through the deeps.

I withdraw into myself as McKay and the scientists in the back begin to banter quietly. The tension in this ship is oppressive to me—I am very tempted to put everyone but Sheppard to sleep until we find the drilling station. Not only to give me a respite from their flaring tempers, but to give my ears a rest. Honestly, when they speak 'conversationally' it is almost too loud for me. This semi-shouting is giving me a head-ache.

"You know what? Shut up!" McKay's voice is edged with the panic he feels when it appears he has failed at something very important and everyone keeps reminding him of this.

"You know what? _You_ shut up, OK?"

"Will you ALL _please_ be quiet?!" I finally shout over the growing mêlée. It is a decided advantage of having a 'wraithian' voice—when I yell, everyone listens. "Thank you. I don't want to hear another word not relating to course change until we get there!"

John casts me a grateful look as the scientists gape. McKay opens his mouth to argue, but Sheppard cuts him off.

"No! Stop it! She was relaying _my_ message," he tells the Canadian. "So, like the lady said, shut up, unless you have something important to say."

"Like the HUD's up?" McKay asks snarkily.

"Finally!" Sheppard mutters under his breath when he sees that we have finally located the station. "OK, kids, we're here."

Radek and Rodney hurry forward to look at the display as John uses it to guide us to dock.

"Well, hopefully it won't take too much longer to power up the station," John says a moment before a few of the outer lights on the station come on.

"That wasn't so hard," Dr. Weir quips happily.

"Now all I've gotta do is dock this thing and we can find out what this place is all about."

As we pull into the station's dock, the tingling on the edge of my mind grows into a burning flame, and the knot in my stomach hitches itself tighter. I glance at my mum—she feels it too.

There is another wraith near by.

TBC

A/N: Yes, another lame opening. But hang in there! And please review! Pretty please!


	2. Forebodings

**Forebodings**

* * *

As we dock, the tension palpably eases, though the excitement builds in the scientists. For the others, this more or less a chore—certainly more stimulating than laundry, but it does not electrify them as exploring other planets does. 

But I can neither be excited nor bored, only apprehensive. The edges of my mind burn with the strength of a wraith awakening somewhere nearby, and the sense of foreboding in my gut only intensifies as the door of the Puddle Jumper opens to admit us to the station.

I cannot help but feel…lost here. Even more than I do on Atlantis. She and I, we have come to a truce of sorts. She may not like me, and her medical equipment may still try to 'fry' me, but at least she lets me use the doors and the showers and the kitchens and the like.

As we walk through the dark halls, I sense that everyone else is also feeling nervous to a degree. This place is not so welcoming as Atlantis, and the gloomy light and dark walls serve as a terrifying reminder that we are thousands of feet under water, with millions of gallons of sea waiting to crush us.

"Mary, I want you to help the scientists set up in here," John orders me when we finally reach the main control room. I nod. I really want to help them explore this place, but I understand that he may want to do some 'recon' first, without the green kid to distract them.

One of the scientists is trying to attach his laptop to one of the stations, but seems unaware that he will shortly fry them both if he tries to shove that wire into that junction, so I grab his hand before he can waste oxygen on an electrical fire.

"What?" he asks and glares at me with the look that says 'wraith, take your hand off me and let me do my work that you couldn't understand'.

"You were about to electrocute yourself and destroy this equipment," I inform him calmly, taking the wire and inserting it into the proper connector. "This is a geological stability and potential geothermal energy monitoring station. It is somewhat different from the other Lantean work stations."

"Oh."

I hold out my hand in the traditional earth greeting. "I am Mairghread. But you may call me 'Mary'. Most people do."

He seems mollified for the moment and so shakes my hand. "I'm Dr. Dickenson. Nice to meet you, Mary. And, uh, thanks for saving me from frying myself."

"My pleasure," I smile and tap the laptop's screen, since I can't use the station proper, and hand it back to him. "There you are. Just be careful where you put your wires."

Rodney is running a bio-scan; I stop, hoping that the scan will show that the wraith presence I feel is just an effect of the immense pressure. But when the only wraith life-sign that appears on the translucent screen is my own, I feel only a slight relief. I cannot shake the foreboding sensation that appeared when I first felt the presence.

And so I put it to the back of my mind as I help the scientists set up. Some of them are relative 'newbies', and this is their first off-Atlantis experience. Some the equipment is unfamiliar to them as well, and since I have an encyclopedic knowledge of technologies in this galaxy, I am constantly having to stop them from doing things that with any other piece of Ancient technology would be perfectly fine, but here would result in disaster.

"I know, Rodney, but I am sensing it even closer now," I hear Mum say from the center of the control room. I stand up from my spot in the corner helping Graydon to watch the exchange.

"Of course you are! Mary's just over there!" Rodney gestures distractedly in my direction.

"No, another one," she protests quietly but adamantly.McKay sighs heavily. "Well, maybe it's the pressure. It's been known to do things to the mind."

John has his dangerous look on as he grinds out, "Just humour me and check again."

Rodney sighs irritably and activate the life-signs detector again, showing twelve human signs and one wraith one, me."There. All of these life signs have been accounted for," he says smugly. "Humoured?"

"Mary?"

I turn to see Dickenson and Graydon working on a station in an alcove a few feet away.

"Coming!" and so I walk over to help them, leaving Rodney and John still sniping at one another. However, the fact that Mum felt the presence as well, while somewhat reassuring as it means I'm not losing my mind, makes the bottom of the pit in my stomach drop out all together. No matter what the life-signs detector says, there is another wraith nearby, and something very bad is about to happen.

TBC

Next: Approaching Doom

A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who has shown their support for the story thus far, and for all my Atlantis stories. Please hit the little purple button to let me know what you think, what you would like to see, etc. All feed back welcome.


	3. Approaching Doom

**Approaching Doom**

* * *

Really, you would think that these scientist would search the database and learn the basic schematics of the devices they are likely to encounter before they left Atlantis. I am having to explain for a third time _why_ it is not a good idea to put _that_ wire into _that_ junction on _this_ station and even my immense patience is wearing thin.

"Hey, Mairghread?"

I turn my head to see Dad waving me over to him. I hurry over, wondering what he needs me for.

"Me and Teyla're doin' some recon. Why don't you come? Be good for you," he rumbles and hands me a 9 millimeter handgun in its holster.

"Of course." I slide the holster's loop onto my belt and then strap it to my thigh. My slitted skirt, which I copied from the one Mum wears to train in, allows it. I check the weapon, making sure the clip is full and the safety is on. Before we left, John made sure I was certified to handle all the basic handguns they use.

We wander through the corridors, watching for anything that could be either dangerous or of interest to the scientists. Dad seems relaxed—freed from the confinement and inaction of the jumper, with an entire base to explore and no enemies that would show up on the life-signs detector present and McKay back in the control room…I think this is the closest thing to him having fun I've seen since I was a child and we played chase. There's even a ghost of a smile on his face.

Mum, however, seems uneasy and distracted. She looks around, somewhat bewildered. Her grace and cat-like tension are gone. Her eyes are darting over carvings, her feet, the floor, but not the corridors, not into dark doorways, and she continually glances back at me, a strange gleam in her eye that makes my skin crawl.

Dad seems to notice it too. After a while of walking in this eerie silence, he begins trying to make light conversation.

"This place is big, huh?" he asks lightly, but Mum doesn't answer. I too stay quiet. The knot in my stomach is clenching, and something is terribly wrong here, though I don't know what. Something is wrong with Mum…it's as though she weren't there…

Dad looks over his shoulder, concern furrowing his brow. "What's wrong?"

She seems startled. "Nothing. Why?"

"You just haven't said a word."

The fact that he is noticing this as something potentially wrong only increases the sensation of fear for me. Dad has never been one for needless conversation.

"Have I not?" Mum stops in her tracks.

"No."

"Has my silence made you uncomfortable?" she asks, and the certainty I feel that it is not my mother inhabiting the body in from of me explodes in my chest. What is going on?

"No," Dad stops and looks at her. He can sense it too…

Mum walks up to him, ignoring me. "Your friendship is very important to me. I would hate to do anything that made you ...," she puts her hand on his shoulder, "uncomfortable."

No. No. This is not my mother. This sudden, unbalanced act? No. Something nags at the back of my mind; I try to remember, but the scrap remains elusive…

"Okay, well," he says calmly, levelly, though glancing uneasily at her hand, "we're good."

Oh no…

"Dad!" I scream my warning too late—Teyla slams her knee into his groin even as the word tears from my throat. I step forward, and she has already hit him, and he is falling, his head cracking against the wall, and he is down, groaning, semi-conscious. I reach up to tap my comm, call for help, and suddenly there is a boot in my stomach and I cannot breathe…as I fight for air, she hits me in the face, again and again and again, and I am falling backwards…my head connects with the stone floor with a sharp crack, and I am lost in a world of exploding stars, swirling of darkness and miring pain.

As I lose my hold on consciousness, my mental barrier's fall, and my mind brushes the one who controls my mother's body. A searing pain and revulsion that have nothing to do with my injuries consume me. The wraith whom I sensed is controlling my mum. I try to call out, try to warn someone, but my voice will not work. I reach out with my mind, hoping to connect with Sheppard or Weir or Rodney, but it is like trying to hold sand.

I fight to see through the darkness and the pain, to see my dad, but more agony comes as she kicks me over and over...

Dad?! Dad?...Dad?...Dad……..Da……………

TBC

Next: Sleeping Serpent


	4. Sleeping Serpent

**Sleeping Serpent**

* * *

"One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continuously stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you all right?  
_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_

* * *

A warm hand upon my back, someone calling my name, muffled and distorted words call me back to consciousness.

Next to me, I hear Dad groan as he too recovers from the attack. My vision is still blurry, but I can just make out the forms of John and Rodney crouching in front of me and Dr. Weir kneeling next to Dad.

"Are you all right?" I hear Dr. Weir ask him, to which he replies indignantly, "No!" Of all things I find inexplicable about my human friends, it's their habit of both stating the obvious and asking questions to which the answer should be so obvious, the question shouldn't even be asked. If a man has been found unconscious in a hallway on an abandoned, subaqueous geological drilling platform, shouldn't it be obvious that _something_ went wrong, and so he _clearly_ cannot be 'all right'? Somewhat right, even _mostly_ right, but not all right!

That fact that I'm even thinking this at this time is probably evidence I was hit a little too hard.

"Mary, you good?" Dad casts me a worried glance, but I smile.

"I'm fine. Give me a few minutes and I'm sure the bruises will be gone."

"Did you see who attacked you?" Elizabeth continues with her inane line of questioning. Thirteen people on the station, seven scientists back at the control room, three standing in front of us, two on the floor just regaining consciousness, one person missing, and no way for anyone else to get in? Hmm. I wonder.

Maybe I have been spending too much time with Rodney. My thoughts are becoming very sarcastic.

"Yeah. It was Teyla," he tells her quietly.

"What?! Why?" demands Rodney.

"It was not Mum," I tell them, and they look at me incredulously. "Her body, yes, but she was the controlling force. I should have known, I sensed something was different, and the way I was sensing the other wraith changed," again, they cast strange looks at me, "But I cannot understand how she did it. To take over someone's body requires immediate proximity, or else…" a guilty look sweeps over them, especially John.

"Oh no," I shake my head as I push myself up the wall. "John Sheppard, do NOT tell me you let my mother reach out to an _unknown_ wraith mind without at _least_ letting me know!"

"Okay, I won't tell you," he replies elusively, looking to Rodney and Weir for support as I rise to my full height and my voice begins to boom with rage.

"JOHN SHEPPARD YOU ARE AN IDIOT! SON OF A TAVA BEAN! HOW COULD YOU?!"

"Did you just call me the son of a tava bean?" he clings to his precious sarcasm. Dad leans over and explains, "It's another way of calling you an idiot."

I set off down the hall, weaving slightly, to where I sense the combined minds of my mother and the wraith.

"Mary, where do you think you're going?" John demands as he and the others chase after me.

"To get Mum back. In close proximity it will be easy to force the other wraith out of her mind," I continue to storm down the corridors, growing steadier with each step. "How could you, John? My _athair_ gave you all his knowledge of the wraith, you know nearly as much as I do! And you still let her try it? If anyone should have touched minds with her, it should have been me!"

"Her?" John repeats while Dr. Weir argues, "Teyla's been doing this since before—"

I round on them both. "Before what? Before I was born? Huh, that would have been quite a feat. And yes, John Sheppard, it is a wraith queen. A very ancient wraith queen at that. And, Dr. Weir," I say as I turn on my heel and begin walking again, "_I_ have been building mental protection since before I was born, and I have 'psychic' abilities beyond even most wraith. My _mathiar_ was an _aoghaire_ and I am of the Sixth Generation."

I know I am ranting and that I should really not be saying these things. Even with Woolsey's recommendation, my position will always be tenuous because of what I am.

"This is Zelenka. Someone has just activated emergency forcefields throughout the station," the Czech's voice crackles over the radio and breaks into my furious tirade. We all stop for a moment.

John responds, even as he makes hand motions for Elizabeth and Rodney to return to the control room, which I'm sure is where he'd prefer me to be.

"Ok, I want everyone back in the Control Room till we know what the hell's goin' on here. Can you get back?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Good," he turns off his comm. "Elizabeth, you and Rodney head back. We'll find Teyla."

"Okay. But be careful!" she shouts after us as we race down the hallways.

"In here," I whisper to them when we come to an auxiliary control room. I pause a moment, sensing gently with my mind. "She is herself again. The wraith has left her."

Nonetheless, John tells me to stay back while he and Dad get her. In light of my earlier outburst, I do as bid.

A minute later, they bring her out, looking tired, ashamed and confused. I silently put my arm over her shoulder and together we follow John back to the living quarters off the main control room.

Mum is silent as I sit with her on the bunk, waiting for Dr. Weir and Rodney to join us.

"She is a snake, half-awake always, waiting," I murmur softly and squeeze Mum's hand reassuringly. "You should rest. I can tell Dr. Weir what she needs to know."

She shakes her head. "Thank you, Mairghread, but I will do it. This is not the first time it has happened…. Just the worst."

And so I sit quietly while Mum and the others discuss this, even when I want to scream at them. If they had just asked, I could have told them, even without linking minds, that the other wraith was an ancient, powerful female. If they would be quiet for five minutes, I could reach out and learn all they want to know.

Suddenly, the edge of my mind is scorched by queen's proximity and her futile efforts to control me.

"Shush!" I order them all sharply as they bicker about unimportant points in the matter. "She is on board the station."

Instantly, they are all looking at me, waiting for more. I close my eyes at a sudden burst of pain.

"She is feeding," I whisper, even as Dickenson's voice screams over the radio, "Colonel Sheppard, If you can hear me, please help me!"

John looks at McKay. "Do you have any men unaccounted for?"

"Two guys I just sent back to the Jumper," he replies, a look of horror spreading over his face. "Sent them to work on the force fields so we could use the Jumpers sensors. Oh, God!"

John and Dad race out of the room while Rodney runs back to the control room to remove the force fields that block the quickest route to the trapped men and try to keep the fluctuating ones from cutting them off.

TBC

A/N: Come on people do I have to beg? Okay. PLEASE PLEASE CLICK THE LITTLE PURPLE BUTTON!!!

Next: Capture


	5. Capture

**Capture**

* * *

The minutes pass while we wait for news. Mum and I are both sensing the queen's caustic presence, painfully close, hungry and assertive, then dulled— 

Shouts from the control room, orders flying…McKay tells us the compartment with the Jumper was flooding, they had to throw up emergency bulkhead force-fields; they are still trying to reach Dad and John, but Graydon was confirmed dead.

I stand up and immediately Weir demands to know where I think I'm going.

"To the station's infirmary," I tell her, concentrating all my will power on remaining calm. "There is a good chance that Dad and John are injured, and it is possible they may have captured the queen—her presence is numbed, as though she were unconscious."

Thus declaiming my purpose, I sweep out of the crew quarters, picturing the map of the station from the control room. Five halls, three rights and two lefts later, and I have found the infirmary. My skin tingles uncomfortably so close to Lantean medical equipment, but I know what I need.

I pull the dust cloths off three of the beds and begin yanking open cupboards, looking for blankets and anything else that may still be useful after 10,000 years, like restraints for the wraith I hope they have captured.

How strange a thought—'the wraith I hope they have captured'. I have few illusions about my race. I know what we have become. I know that my people are become murderers, torturers, monsters that lurk in the shadows. Yet, I cannot help but feel...a connection that runs deeper than mere genetic similarities. To want one to become a prisoner, as my own father was, seems to bring me down to their level. Perhaps I am no better then they, despite my never having fed. Is it mere vanity to think that I am less evil than my distant cousins who cull whole worlds? Is it only the name of our sins that are different, but the severity the same?

Behind me, Dr Weir comes in with the case full of our own medical supplies, seeming somewhat…miffed. While I did not intend to rub her the wrong way, I have grown tired of her absurd questions and illogical decisions, as well as her thinly disguised dislike of me. Despite my doubts and fears regarding my people, I cannot help what I am—I am wraith. No amount of her frowns can change that, nor have I given her reason to regard me with such disdain.

"Mary, good thing you're here," I turn around to see John and Dad come in, dripping wet; over his shoulder, Dad has slung the other wraith. In the deep recesses of my heart, I wonder if I can face this brethren. Am I strong enough to resist? Is there anything to resist?

Such thoughts are futile.

"Thank the Spirits. Are either of you injured?" I demand hurriedly as Dad unceremoniously dumps the queen on the nearest bed.

"Nope, we're good," he rumbles, surreptitiously wiping off his shoulder and violently shaking water from his dreadlocks.

"Uh, Mary, think you could get her," John gestures towards the wraith while wringing out his jacket, "Pumped full of our finest sedatives?"

"Of course," I grab an IV bag of saline and a vial of strong sedative from the case, along with the necessary needles. Dr. Beckett taught me basic nursing skills for an event such as this.

I place them on the small table next to the bed and reach out to roll the wraith, whom Dad dropped on the bed in a heap on her side, on her back.

As soon as I touch her, I am filled with revulsion and nausea the likes of which I have never felt before in my life. Icy terror slices through my heart and my breath freezes in my throat. Emotions I have never known, so immense and consuming….

I jerk away from her and stumble into the corridor, where I crumple into a corner, gasping for breath and trying to find myself amidst the many horrifying memories which spring into my mind, unbidden except by the sight and touch of the other wraith.

Seeing through my sibling's eyes as they are killed…

Watching them die through the eyes of the living….

My mother's last moments, her last words, her curse, replay over and over in my mind, a maelstrom, a thick, choking miasma of pain and hatred and terror and death…

"Mary?"

I scream when Dad touches my shoulder. I open my eyes and he and John are kneeling in front of me, their eyes full of concern. I realize in a flash that I am trembling violently and as soaked with sweat and tears as they are with sea water.

"What is it? What'd she do to you?" John asks, his hand reaching for his gun.

"_Bheil__ si mortair a' mo treubh_," I whisper hoarsely in my own tongue while I seek the words in theirs. "She is the murderer of my family."

TBC

Next: Lady MacBeth

A/N: FYI: I use Scots Gaelic for Wraith-ese. Lantean is bastard latin, so why not gaelic for wraith? Go listen to some, and I think you'll understand why. The next couple chapters will be progressively darker, I'm thinking, and will end up departing from the episode almost entirely, sooner or later, of course. Now, I know this chapter was short, but, Please REVIEW!!!


	6. Lady MacBeth

**Lady MacBeth**

* * *

Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here

And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,

Stop up the access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between

The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,

And take my milk for gall, your murdering ministers,

Wherever in your sightless substances

You wait on nature's mischief! Lady MacBeth, Shakespeare MacBeth I, iv

* * *

They stare at me in stunned silence, but I am too numb to comfort or reasure or even offer a snarky remark. The Murderer, the traitor, the… the….

"She's coming 'round!" Dr. Weir calls from the other room, and for a moment, I hate her, however selfishly. The queen will not move—John and Dad would have strapped her down before finding me. Can she not understand that I have just opened the door to Hell?

"Right there!" John jerks his head, indicating Dad should go stand guard. Why should he stand guard while his daughter suffers? But John gives him a look, and he obeys, however grudgingly. Sheppard turns back to me, looking me in the eye, full of…compassion? Understanding? How could he possibly understand?

"Mary, I have a feeling we could use you in there, but you don't have to come back in if you don't want to—"

"No," I shake my head…no matter my fear, no matter the pain, I, and I alone, must face her. She is my demon. "You need the information she holds. Mum isn't strong enough. It just…took me by surprise." Which is not entirely a lie, though not entirely the truth

"I'll bet." I cannot tell if he is serious or sarcastic or both. Does it matter?

I try to give him a smile, although I don't thing I succeed in reassuring him. "I will be there in a moment. I just need to… prepare myself."

"Right." He pauses. "You know you're starting to talk like Teyla, right? Always pausing before a verb or adjective?"

This time I can give him a genuine smile—somehow John can always do that, coax a smile or a chuckle out of you, even in the worst situations.

I close my eyes as he returns to the infirmary and I listen to their conversation with the _morthair_.

Blood fills my senses. Human blood, carnadine and coppery; wraith blood, dark, metallic and earthy. In my mouth, my nose, my eyes. On my hands, my face. I cannot escape it, no matter how I try to force the memories back—I can't even tell if this world of blood and smoke and screams is the real world, or the world of water and exhaustion is real…

Humorless, dangerous laugh breaks through the confusion. "You are all about to die."

"Care to elaborate on that?" John's dry voice throws me a lifeline back to his world, and I drag myself up through the mire of memory with it.

Silence. No more screams, no more talking, nothing.

I steel myself as much as I can. I will never be 'ready' to face Her. I pray silently to the Spirits for strength as I walk in and stand beside the bed, drawing myself up as she stares at me in shock, almost horror.

"I killed you!" she whispers, and then screams, "I killed you and the brat you carried! I killed you centuries ago!"

"Not me," I say levelly, dangerously, even as a shudder runs through my body and my meager breakfast rises in my throat at the sound of her voice. Oh that she had died in the ocean! Oh, that she is now at my mercy! "My mother."

"No, it's a trick!" she shrieks, fighting against the restraints. "I killed them all! All her daughters!"

"All you could find, _morthair_," I struggle to remain impassive—it is the lack of passion that frightens her the most—but my voice still trembles with fury and passion unspent. "But you could not find me. I lived to see my mother's curse came to pass."

She spits on me. "The words of a dying bitch! They mean nothing!"

I smile grimly. "Yet here you are. All those deaths have gained you nothing but a prison in the depths of the ocean and death by my hand."

I turn to face the shocked humans behind me. A part of me wants to reassure them, explain, step back and look impassionately at this, but my patience, my nerves are worn thin. I, however wrongly, am in no mood to coddle them. "You need to know if her threat is worth anything. Stay back, be quiet and don't interfere unless you think something has gone horribly wrong."

"Mairghr—"

"Dr. Weir, with all due respect," I cut her off as firmly and politely as I can under the circumstances. "This is not the time."

I face the _morthair_ again, and lower my first barrier that separates our minds, trying to brace myself against the onslaught I know must be coming.

_Mother!_

_I'll kill you for this!_

Blood, smoke, death! So much death! Stop it! stop it!

_Stay back bitch!_

Focus, Mairghread, damn it! Focus! It's only memory! Fight her. Fight as your mother fought!

_Damn you and all your spawn!_

Pain, such terrible pain…

_Your lifeforce is so _strong_…you taste wonderful…_

Ah! At last, I break through, and her mind is laid bare before me. Her rise to power, her plans for overthrowing the Lanteans, her careful building of alliances…

_I will kill you for this!_ she screeches in my mind, but I shout back _Shut up! I have no interest in your decayed delusions!_

And then, despair…utter loneliness as her crew disappears by her own hand, to feed her when the humans are gone…loneliness broken by fits of torture and carnal pleasure with the few slaves she has kept for distraction, unfit even for food after her abuse….then even these were gone…

"She was the leader of the great alliance, who went with the first wave of ships against Atlantis," I tell John, Dad and Weir, who I know are waiting impatiently behind me. "Her ship failed her, and she crashed into the ocean. When the humans she had brought for sustenance were gone, she fed upon her crew, one by one, until she was alone."

I do not tell them how, in her memories, it is the loneliness that is more unbearable to her than the captivity. Wraith are so used to having the presence of others tangible to us….

"She entered the deep sleep, to make her energy last, waking between the centuries, for a rescue that never came," I do not tell them how greatly she longed for death's release, and feared it so terribly. Facing the other shore, she began to fear the stories she had learned as a child were true, that she would receive frightening retribution for what she had done. "She sense us as we descended, me most of all." If we were not a rescue party, at least she would not have to die alone.

A sudden thought flashes across my sight…

"She has set the self-destruct," I tell them as I turn around. "It will go off in ninety minutes now. Something to write with…" I look around, before Weir hands me her PDA. I draw in the symbols with the tiny stylus. "This is the command code. It will disable the self-destruct."

I break out of Her mind as a prisoner would his gaol cell, passing again through the gore and smoke…

I hurry out of the room as fast as I can; I cannot do anything more…they must take care of it themselves

I run into the crew quarters, desperate and nearly mad with grief as I can no longer stand the memories now overwhelming my mind. I feel the blood coating my skin, the dirt in my hair, ashes under my nails…

I must get clean.

TBC

Next: To Be Clean

A/N: To those of you who are going "What happened to chapters 7-12? Hell, what happened to this chapter?" this is what happened/ is happening. I am moving 600 miles from my current home to begin a new stage in my life in a completely unfamiliar territory. While I am not one to panic, is has affected my writing. I realized that my last few chapters were of poor quality to say the least and crappy to say the most. So I've deleted what I have and am redoing them. Please read and review if you think it's better or worse. Thank you, Cainwen

Steve Plushie would like to add that he will force me to type regardless of the work I will have to do, so fear not, this story will be updated and not abandoned in my move.


	7. To Be Clean

**To Be Clean**

* * *

My hands are shaking so badly I have trouble undoing the buttons, clasps and laces that hold my clothing together.

"Damn it!" I cry with frustration, my teeth chattering one of the knots on my bodice refuses to relinquish itself…

_Mommy, it hurts!_

_I know, baby, I know. _

_Die!_

"Stop it!" I scream and fall to my knees, covering my ears, trying to block the terrible sounds, voices in my mind….

"Mairghread?"

Through the tears I see Mum, standing a little ways off, her eyes full of concern. She comes over and kneels by me, placing a hand on my shoulder comfortingly.

"Dr. Weir told me of what you have done, and what the queen did to you," she says softly. She pauses, brushing my wild hair out of my face, and then helping me to undo the knots my trembling fingers can't manage. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, no…w-wait, um, R-Radek has some, uh, some s-soap, he uses to, um, get r-, uh wash grease off with…um, maybe…?"

Mum finishes untying the last knot and pulls me into a gentle hug. "Of course. I will return shortly."

I nod mutely, and as soon as she is gone, step out of my clothes and into the shower. Thank the Spirits, the Lanteans installed hand controls! I stand under the scalding stream of water, blessed water, trying to burn away the thick layer of blood and dust and smoke I can feel clinging to me.

_No! Leave my family alone! Take me! __I will__ serve your damned queen, just leave my family!_

_Stupid! Do you really think __the Queen__ will suffer rivals?!_

_ARGH!_

_Iain!_

A bar of rough soap is pressed into my hand, and through the cacophony in my mind I hear Mum whisper, "I'll be right outside if you need me."

I nod, already scrubbing the soap all over my body; the rough ground pumice which impregnates it tears at my skin, leaving it raw, and in some places bleeding, but I still feel the dirt, the slime on my skin!

If Dr. Beckett saw me with this soap, he would be furious. When he sees how I've wash my skin raw with it, he'll probably have me stripped and cover in cream in much the same way a cake is frosted, all the while giving a lecture in a mix of English and Gaelic.

_Though you kill me and my family, it will gain you nothing! You will die alone and desperate!_

_Foolish bitch! You think your curses frighten me? Die, and know your curse dies with you!_

At the moment, I would gladly listen to his lecture, even be scanned, rather than be here, alone with these terrible thoughts.

_I would rather die free than her slave!_

_My mother weeps over the body of her daughter, her fifth child to fall to the queen._

_Durhan__! No! No, it can't be! __He can't be dead! No, he was barely six! No, no __no_

The soap is half gone, but I still cannot get rid of the scent of her on my hands, the sensation that I have touched something…rotten, decayed. And it can't wash away these thoughts

My hands are bleeding, and I laugh, hysterically. What would Carson say if he saw me now?

I leave off washing my hands and turn to my hair. It has long since fallen out of the braid I put it in this morning, and I rub the rough soap into it and work it through, scouring my hair and scalp until the soap is all but gone, and I use it up in one last attempt to be clean. But scrubing my head will not purge these voices, these visions these memories!

_Dead! All dead! All my children, my wife, my family, dead! _

I rinse my hair, doing my best to wash out all the grit from the soap, and then I just stand under the water, hoping it will carry everything—soap, pumice, stench, dirt, pain—away from me, into the depths of wherever shower water goes here.

Twenty one deaths. Twenty one agonizing deaths—Durhan, stabbed with a poisoned blade, dying for a week; Ceana, oh Ceana! victim of wraith soldiers, their 'reward' for capturing a hive; my mother, fed on by that queen…

"Mary?"

The sound of John's voice calls me back, and I step out of the shower to see John standing in the doorway, looking rather please with himself. I wonder how long I have been in here, trapped with my thoughts and trying to be clean?

"Oh!" as soon as he sees me, he turns away, blocking me from his sight with his hand and going a peculiar shade of red. "Um, can I get you a towel?"

I had forgotten my lack of clothes. Nudity does not bother me or my people as much as it does humans.

"Uh, yes, thank you," I say as he hurries out of the bathroom; I can hear him rummaging around in the cases in a panicked haste. He comes back, his face carefully averted, a towel in his outstretched hand.

I take the towel with a smile—a light moment in this day of darkness—and wrap it around myself, making sure that my entire torso is covered by the thick terry cloth.

"Better?" I ask him, and he turns around, looking much relieved. I am tempted to drop the towel, just to make him blush again, but I behave myself, securing the towel as I sit on a bench.

"Yeah," he sits down on a bench across from me. "Hey, thanks for that, back there; the command code worked great. No being caught in a blast radius today," he jokes.

"You are welcome," I tell him as I wring out my long hair. "but I'm sure you did not end my shower just to thank me?"

"Well, actually, I ended your shower because I wanted to make sure that there was gonna be enough hot water left for the rest of us."

I tilt my head in confusion. "Lantean stations do not r—"

"I know, I know! It was a joke! Sheesh," he cracks his neck tiredly. "No, I came to talk to you about old, blue and ugly in there."

"Ah."

"We can't let her live," he begins. "She's too dangerous. And mass-murdering, megalomaniacal, war criminals deserve stronger punishment than confinement."

"You will kill her then?"

He sighs and leans forward. "I was kinda thinking you might want that job. I mean, she did kill your family and all."

_Take only what you need; do not kill out of hatred…._

"Revenge is not a reason take life."

_You will die, alone and desperate…_

"No, but," he has a glint in his eye, "if I remember correctly, convicted and condemned murderers are fair game under the Spirit's laws, right?"

I want to, but it seems crooked somehow—she is condemned by me and my second family.

"Look, Mairghread," he looks me in the eye, all seriousness. "She's going to be dead before the Jumper from Atlantis gets here in an hour. Either you can do it, or I can empty a couple of P-90s into her. There isn't a court in the galaxy, _any_ galaxy that wouldn't condemn her. As military commander of this base, I have found her guilty of unspeakable crimes and have sentenced her to death. Is that enough to clean your conscience?"

I nod. "Yes."

"Good," he stands up. "Get dressed—we've moved her to the brig. She's all yours."

TBC

Next: Execution and Revelation

PRETTY PLEASE PUSH THE LITTLE BUTTON AND REVIEW!!!

A/N: To those of you who are going "What happened to chapters 7-12? Hell, what happened to this chapter?" this is what happened/ is happening. I am moving 600 miles from my current home to begin a new stage in my life in a completely unfamiliar territory. While I am not one to panic, is has affected my writing. I realized that my last few chapters were of poor quality to say the least and crappy to say the most. So I've deleted what I have and am redoing them. Please read and review if you think it's better or worse. Thank you, Cainwen

Steve Plushie would like to add that he will force me to type regardless of the work I will have to do, so fear not, this story will be updated and not abandoned in my move.


	8. Execution and Revelation

**Execution and Revelation**

* * *

Italic in quotation marks indicates Wraith-ese

* * *

My hands are still shaking badly, and now they are bleeding, making it even harder to get my clothes on. Leggings, loose shirt and boots are not a problem, but the lacing on my skirt and bodice becomes fouled in my clumsy hands. 

_Death is too good, too quick for your kind! It is you who have stalled me these years! Can't you see this is how it must be?_

21 deaths I remember as though they were my own. 20 siblings, my mother….wait, 20….that can't be right, I had twenty one siblings…who am I missing?...Gilleasbachan!

Damn these laces!!

I go into the crew quarters, hoping Mum has stayed and can help me, but instead I find Dad, leaning against the bunks and looking…inscrutable.

"Need a hand?" he rumbles, standing up and uncrossing his arms.

Suddenly, all my strength leaves me and I find myself sobbing in his arms.

"I'm sorry, Dad, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" I cry over and over, my voice muffled by his shirt, now soaked with my tears.

"Hey, hey," his deep voice vibrates his chest, into me, as soothing now that I am full grown as when I was a child. "Sorry for what?"

"I'm sorry for what that wraith did to you, I'm sorry for not speaking up when I felt the queen, I'm sorry I didn't realize what had happened to Mum, I'm sorry for not stopping her, I'm sorry for not being quick enough, I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough, I'm—"

"Hey hey! Stop!" he cuts me off, taking my chin in his hand and tilting my face upwards to look at him. I stare into his eyes and find…comfort…strength…reassurance. The fawn pools hold no judgement, no hatred. "I wasn't quick enough either. And I've been doing this a lot longer than you have. So stop beating yourself up!"

I chuckle, and hug him tighter until he grunts and starts trying to break my hold.

"You know," he says, slightly breathless, "You're one of the only people whose hugs can actually hurt me."

"Oops, sorry," I give him one last squeeze before stepping back.

He snorts. "Need a hand?"

I look at myself, and remember why I came out here in the first place. I hold up my hands, to see that they are still shaking violently, despite the voices quieting in my mind.

"Um, yes please," I laugh frantically, and climb up to stand on the bench. I may be tall, but I am still short compared to Dad.

His large, calloused hands make quick work of the laces that frustrated my befuddled fingers.

"There," he says when he is finished. He grasps me around the waist and lifts me down to the floor like when I was a little girl. I feel a sudden longing for those days; they were never simple, and always there were these horrible memories in my mind, but never so stark, so insistent. They were there, but not.

Dad wraps me in a crushing hug for a moment and then claps me on the back. "So, what are you gonna do now?"

I straighten my shoulders and look around for something I can use as a shroud. "I'm gonna talk to the queen. And then I'm gonna…" my voice trails off. I know it is the right thing to do, but I cannot help but feel that in taking this life, I am crossing a threshold that I cannot return from. It will irrevocably change something for me, in me.

"Well, probably better you than me, right?"

I nod slowly, and grab a sheet off one of the beds. I think it's Rodney's actually—he insisted on bringing his pima cotton sheets, since who knows what the ancients used? He could be severely allergic!

"What's that for?" Dad raises an eyebrow at my confiscation of the scientist's sheet.

"Shroud. Do you know if Mum brought any incense?"

"Uh, yeah, I think so. Why?" he points confusedly at Mum's small bag.

"She may have murdered my family, but I refuse to be her's," I tell him as I find two sticks of incense and their accompanying bowl. I pause in the doorway. "Dad, do you think you could maybe, come and watch?"

He throws an arm over my shoulders and guides me down the hall. "Sure. Anything for my baby."

"Dad, I'm not a baby anymore! I haven't been a baby in almost a year!"

"See? You didn't give me time to adjust!" he jokes. "But you'll always be my baby."

Dad watches through the bars of the cell—I have told him to set his blaster to stun. I told him its for my safety—the only reason he'd fire is if she's attacking me, and if she's attacking me and he fired a shot on kill at her, it might get me too.

She is lying on the brig's cot when I approach, looking weary, yet defiant when she sees me. All of me begins to tremble again as the terrible memories she projects to me intensify again.

"Have you come to free me, that we may feast?" she snarls, half-heartedly, as she sits up and locks her gaze with mine.

"No." Suddenly, anger and hatred like I have never felt, never thought a person could feel without burning alive, surge through me, and there is nothing I want more than to kill her. To force her to her knees and watch her _beg_.

_You will bow before me, if you want a quick death!_

_No. (the voice is so calm! So assured) I will never bow to a traitor._

She nods to the sheet and the incense. "Then you have come to kill me?"

I study her face, her composure—I want to…what do I want? I think I want to know if she is at all sorry, at all repentant. I want to know if she can see her own defeat and face it, or if she is blind to it, is clinging to the corpse of her power.

Her head is high, but her shoulders are slumped. Her sneer is proud, but her eyes are dead. She knows. Even if she doesn't admit it to herself, she knows. She is defeated. Her life here is over, and her life after death is uncertain. She has taken too many lives without giving back.

"Yes," I say quietly, sitting down in the chair across from her. "But first I need to know. What did you do with my brother?"

She laughs at me, a cruel laugh. "I killed him of course!"

I stare at her, trying to remain impassive, like Dad. "No, not Gilleasbachan. You did not kill him."

A strange look passes over her face. A look that terrifies me more than her hatred. A lustful look. "Ah, him. Yes, I kept him alive. He was pleasing to us. Disobedient, but so much fun..." she draws out the last word until I want to wring her neck, watch her face bloat and the terror in her eyes...

I stop myself, but return to the reason I came--to end her life properly. "Are you ready for the journey to the Land Beyond the Stars?" I ask her, beginning the death litany.

She spits in my face. "Lies!" she screams at me. "Myths! Fairytales told to children in the darkness!"

I take a deep breath, willing myself to stay calm…

_What makes you greater than her? What makes her less?_

My hand is shaking with pain, with fury, with sorrow, sorrow so great I feel it will crush me, as I wipe her spit off my face and light the incense on the floor between us.

"_The end of this journey draws near, and a new one begins_," I chant softly. For a tense moment, I fear that she will not reply, that the burning embers of rebellion in her eyes will forbid her speak, but at last, she chants back, "_One day must end for another to begin, first passing through the darkness of night."_

_"Along this road, nothing may come, but all is seen…"_ I begin the second stanza but she shouts "No! Get this over with, you whelp!"

I sigh and nod. I cannot force her to confess or repent or ask for forgiveness, especially a forgiveness I'm sure I'm not sure I'm willing to give.

"_As day into night, so we into sleep," _I intone and, passing my hand over her face, send her into a deep sleep, one from which she will never again awaken. But as I do, I send one last image for her to take on her journey—the sun setting over Atlantis, while the first stars appear in the heavens.

_Death comes to all—even the stars will travel that road. Why__ would you think you can escape?_

_NO! Please!_

_ARGH!!!_

_Damn you bitch! Leave my children alone!_

_Two hours—bury the dead and then come to the hive._

_Or…?_

_There is no or._

My mother's words echo through my head, mingled with the screams of thousands, countless thousands, and the threats of the soldiers as I quickly drain the deposed queen of her stolen life. It's…intensity burns my flesh—I feel a darkness, a black sludge creeping in, oozing through my defenses as I drain her of life. No matter how I try, it clings to her life like mould to stone—it pools in my stomach like acrid bile…

_No! No, please!_

_Damn you!_

_AHHH!!!_

"Argh!" I scream as at last she is dead and her desiccated corpse falls away from my hand. I recoil from this horror; a new pain fills me and my eyes swim with tears and darkness while the blackness roils in my stomach.

"Mairghread!"

Dad's strong hands catch me as I pitch forward, away from that abomination.

"She's dead," I choke out. "She's dead. She's dead. Dead at last. She's dead. She's dead. She's dead!"

"Mairghread, hey, whoa!" Dad hold me tightly against his chest as I become hysterical in my pain.

"Oh god," I choke as the blackness surges up my throat and I vomit onto the floor, thick contamination from diseased body and soul. Dad holds me as I retch until it is only dry heaves, and I am empty. Completely empty.

Dad picks me up as carries me like he did when I was a baby, holding me close to him—I can smell the wet leather and linen, his smell; it fills me, diluting the void within—and carries me to another set of crew quarters nearby. He sets me down on a bed, and leaves me for a moment. I lie trembling, feeling death press close on me, the vacuum within me trying to suck me into its darkness, make me implode.

"Here," he comes back with a wet rag from I don't know where and washes my face and hands of vomit and blood. Slowly, I start to cry, tears flowing down my face. Dad holds me, gently rubbing my back, and I sob quietly, for the dead souls and the stillborn future.

TBC

Next: Rescue

A/N: I'm so sorry it took so long to update. My muse got jet lagged and then went into shock when she realized there are no mountains here. I hope to update more quickly from now on.


	9. Rescue

**Rescue**

_Why do you weep for the happy dead, my daughter? It __is the__ living who need your tears…_

It is my mother's voice, but I do not know to whom she would have said this, or why amidst all my memories of death and thoughts of sorrow these soothing words should come to me…

Gilleasbachan!

I jerk away from my dad's comforting embrace as though I had received a jolt of electricity and stagger over to one of the bathroom sinks where I begin to wash my hands of what remains of the queen's blood. Dad follows me and leans against the doorframe the way he does, watching me with an eagle's eye, perhaps to make sure I don't hurt myself…

"Dad, I need to go over to the cruiser," I announce as I scrub the dark, clotted gore from my palm.

"Why?" he asks sharply, gruffly. Inwardly I wince—how can I explain to him? How can I do this, when already I can see that dealing with the queen today has rankled him, prodded those open sores which even I cannot heal?

"My brother is there," I state bluntly. There is no gentle way to put this, and prevarication will only rub salt in the wounds. Dad has always appreciated honest words and clear action over silky speech.

"Whoa, wait," he crosses his arms and stands up straight, at once defensive and on the offence. "I thought only you and Cullough were left alive."

I sigh and turn to face him, my hands dripping water onto the floor. "I thought so too. Until I was in the shower and I realized I had no memory of Gilleasbachan's death. The queen more or less confirmed it—she kept him alive."

"Why would she do that?" his voice is harsh—today has been hard on Dad in so many ways, this is one more thing for him to come to terms with in a very short amount of time…

"You heard her," I remind him. "'He was pleasing to us.' She kept him as a…" I choke on the word, but there is no other way to say it and call it what it is… "sex slave."

Dad grows stiffer—I can see my words slowly penetrating. Oh Spirits! Would that I could spare him this pain! He is so torn—it took so long for him to accept me but once he did, I was his. But I was an infant, completely innocent of anything. Gilleasbachan was an adult, but he is my brother, and a victim of the wraith like dad was.

"What makes you think he's on that cruiser?" his voice is still gruff, but I can see him softening, sense his initial hostility cracking.

I shudder involuntarily and say plainly, "The queen was prepared for a long battle. She would not deprive herself pleasure for the sake of battle."

"Hmph," he uncrosses his arms and checks his blaster. "Let's go find Sheppard. Maybe there're some more of those suit things."

"You'll help?" I ask, somewhat surprised. I had hoped he wouldn't fight me, wouldn't let his disapproval burn against me, but I did not expect him to help.

"Didn't say I'd play poker with him," he huffs as he wraps his arm around my shoulder and guides me out of the unused rooms. "But he's your brother—I'll help for your sake."

"Thank you," I whisper and jump up slightly to peck Dad on the cheek. "I love you, Dad."

"Love you too, babe," he kisses the top of my head gently as we walk along.

Once I explain to John what happened, he agrees almost immediately, though he tells us not to tell Weir—he's afraid that she might not want to act immediately, and I have impressed upon him my fear that Gilleasbachan may be dying, and may have been dying for years. He explains it to Mum, and tells her to keep Dr. Weir busy. She does not like the subterfuge, but agrees. I sense there is something going on between Sheppard and Dr. Weir that I am unaware of officially.

There are two more underwater suits that they found, so John, Dad and I all suit up to go join Rodney back on the cruiser. Once internal sensors on the ship showed no life signs, he had insisted on staying to see how bad the damage to the ship was.

The Lanteans had never anticipated anyone Dad's size trying to use these suits apparently, because he just barely fits. He has to take off his boots in order to make his legs short enough. In my suit, I take an emergency med-kit—bandages, blankets, antibiotic ointments.

Though I know the walk between the drilling platform and the cruiser is not long, it feels like an eternity to me. I keep reaching out with my mind, hoping, trying to find my brother, but there is only an emptiness when I ignore Mum's mind. Yet he cannot be dead…

The darkness of the water…it weighs down upon us, upon me…like the darkness I feel creeping like a shadow over my soul…I know that killing the queen was right, no one can hold it against me, and yet…

No! Stop thinking about this…I must force myself to think about life, not death…

At last, we reach the cruiser, and enter through its own moon pool. We work in a triangle, helping each other to get out of the deep-water suits, which are heavy and clumsy.

As I struggle to free myself from the legs and boots, my foot pulls free of everything, including my own shoes, and I stumble back, my barefoot touching the floor of the cruiser.

The instant my foot touches the floor, I have the sudden sensation of being…home. Not like coming back to our flat in Atlantis; it is more like…coming back to somewhere I lived a long time ago, to find it has been vandalized, desecrated, but it is still home.

_Hello Mairghread_.

The voice flits through my mind, familiar, welcoming…

Our hive…the queen used captured small hive ships to build this cruiser, and one of them was ours, and now it welcomes me, despite long separation, it recognizes me, warming the floor beneath my feet and raising the light so we can see more clearly.

_Where is my brother? Where is Gilleasbachan?_ I ask it, and almost immediately a shadow of sorrow flits across my mind, and an image, a map, which guides in my mind, weaving through the intersecting corridors, down a level, at last to a small room, nearly hidden by millennia of growth and dirt.

I rush off, matching the images in my mind to what I see as I rush through the halls which light up as I run, Dad and John chasing after me, yelling for me to slow down, where am I going?

How can I slow down? My brother is here, somewhere, hurt, dying…

At last! I find the small, hidden door, which retracts for me and I dash in to fall at the side of a body-sized mound in the floor. With feverish haste born of a terror that I may too late to save him, though he is not dead yet, I brush off the thick layers and dirt and debris until only a thin, translucent membrane separates me from what lies within.

As the room grows brighter, I can see clearly that beneath this mound is my brother, the shadows and contours of his face leaping out at me even through the clouded film between us.

_He is near death_… the hive warns me _You will have to act quickly…the queen did terrible things to him…_

I shudder, but mentally nod to the ship, positioning my hand over where his heart is, under the membrane that separates us, ready to flood him with new life the moment my hand will fit through…

Slowly, the membrane separates, as though reluctant after all these ages to move and give up its burden, and as soon as it is wide enough I slam my hand onto his chest, pouring into him what I so recently took from the queen, his torturer…

He is so weak, it terrifies me. Even though I pump all of the queen's energies and some of my own into him, he barely has enough to breathe, for his heart to beat, and he is dreadfully hurt. Through his ragged clothes, which now crumble with age, I can see scars, welts old and new, cuts shallow and deep, some partially healed, some now beginning to bleed sluggishly. His face is drawn, even in sleep, and his hair has begun to grey, from his temples reaching back nearly a hand's-width. As the membrane pulls back further, I can see his limbs bent at unnatural angles…

"DAD! JOHN!" I shout, hoping they are within hearing distance, because I now realize that in my haste I left the medical kit I brought from the platform back with the suits.

"Right here," John answers, and makes me jump—so absorbed was I in finding my brother I did not notice he was crouching down next to me, with Dad standing in the doorway. "I brought the med kit," he says, shrugging it off his shoulders and onto the floor. "Geez, he's a bit of a mess."

I cast John a withering glare at his careless words as I spread out one of the blankets on the floor and with John's help I lift Gilleasbachan out of the stasis pod imbedded in the floor and onto it. Wounds, partially healed and unhealed, begin to bleed sluggishly, dark blood dripping off a skeletal frame onto the grey blanket. With more haste than skill I bandage the lacerations and deep wounds, hoping to at least stem the tide that threatens to take my brother's already fragile life.

_Take him out of here…there is a room not far away…_images slip into my mind of a bedroom of sorts, 20 meters away…

I could lift Gilleasbachan myself, but I do not want to risk too much jarring, I fear for the broken bones and ribs I felt when I bandaged him…

"Dad or John?" I turn them, still standing by but looking unsure. "Could you help me carry him? There is a bedroom just down the hall…"

Dad grunts and scoops up Gilleasbachan like a baby before I can say anything else. "Which way?" he asks, somewhat coldly—I know that this is 'way outside his comfort zone'.

"This way…"I lead them out into the hall and turn right until I come to the room that the hive showed me.

"How the hell do you know all this?" John demands as he looks around uneasily at the dark and…eerie excuse for a bedroom.

"The cruiser is showing me—part of it used to be our hive," I explain curtly as I brush the dust of ancient blankets and sheets off the bed so Dad can set down Gilleasbachan.

Dad sets him down gently, though I think only for my sake, and I am struck, truly struck, for the first time how terribly thin, skinny, skeletal, my brother has become. In my memories he looms large, lean, yes, but muscular, like John, not this pathetic, emaciated…

_corpse_

I shudder as the word springs unbidden into my mind. Gilleasbachan, my brother, protector, is corpse-like. His skin is deathly pale, even for a wraith, his cheeks and eyes sunken, and neither bandages nor the pitiful scraps of rag that are what remains of his clothes can hide the bones which protrude through parchment skin…

Have I found my brother, only to watch him die?

TBC

Next: Fevered Dreams

A/N: I'm so SO sorry, my life is insane. Therefore, while I promise to update as quickly as possible, I can make no promises as to when that should be, except that there should definitely be an update by the end of the month. Sorry. And for those of you who are going, "where are all the other chapters?" don't worry, they're coming back, better than ever! I hope.


	10. Fevered Dreams

**Fevered Dreams**

* * *

_corpse_

I shudder as the word springs unbidden into my mind. Gilleasbachan, my brother, protector, is corpse-like. His skin is deathly pale, even for a wraith, his cheeks and eyes sunken, and neither bandages nor the pitiful scraps of rag that are what remains of his clothes can hide the bones which protrude through parchment skin…

Have I found my brother, only to watch him die?

I mentally slap myself, forcing myself away from this terrifying thought, to concentrate on healing…

But there is so much! Where do I even start?...he is so fragile looking, I'm almost afraid that the moment I touch him, he will shatter….afraid that the lightest touch will cause him more pain…

"Teyla just radioed," John says next to me, making me jump. "The jumper's about 10 minutes away and they sent Beckett—Teyla's sending them straight over here. Seems the gateroom figures if me and Rodney are involved, the odds are we'll need him anyway—"

I nod, murmur, "That's perfect, thank you…"

Why? How? How could she do this? How could anyone do this to anyone else?

He seems so…small…

"May be we should get him cleaned up before Beckett gets here? He's kinda—" John's words break through my thoughts, jolting me to action.

"Yes! Yes," I mutter to myself—cleaning him up, it should have been the first thing I did…adult wraith have no immune system, they are wholly dependent on their healing abilities to stave off sickness and Gilleasbachan is so weak…so terribly weak…he is open to all kinds of infections…the littlest thing could kill him… I cast my eyes around the room for something that will hold water, and at last I spot a large bowl in the corner.

"John, please fill that basin with water from the bathroom there?" I jerk my head in the direction of the bathroom door, not waiting to see if he complies—I trust he will.

Gilleasbachan's silvered hair has fallen in to his face…his hair has been crudely shorn about his shoulders, uneven, hacked at with a dull blade…gently, almost hesitantly I brush it back, cringing as I see how some of it is caught in the blood which has caked on his temple, how many cuts, how many bruises, how many inflamed wheals mar his handsome face…how hollow his checks are, how dark and sunken his eyes…

"Here ya go, fresh…wraith…ocean…how clean can this water be?" John splashes some out of the bowl as he puts it at the head of the bed, but the living mattress absorbs it quickly.

"You'd be surprised," I tell him as I take a washcloth from the pack and soak it in the water. As much as I hate the feel of them, I put on a pair of the nitrile gloves to protect my brother from any contamination my hands may unwittingly carry. At least they didn't pack the latex gloves—they smell terrible!

"You know, I just really can't imagine…"

John's voice fills the background of my mind, a strange, slightly dissonant accompaniment to my task. I start with Gilleasbachan's face, dampening and working the dried blood free of his hair, carefully sponging away layers of caked dirt and blood and unspeakable filth and slime. The area around a jagged cut which snakes across his forehead is hot to the touch and swollen—I fear infection set in before he went into stasis….

This is bad…so very, very bad…

"Sheppard, you told Teyla to send Beckett over here with blankets? What the hell is going on?!"

I spare a glance over my shoulder to see Rodney burst into the room followed by the good Doctor with his medical kit and Sgts. Kierkegaard and Kafka burdened with a washing machine's worth of blankets and towels.

"Tone it down McKay!" Sheppard growls back. "Can't you see we have an injured brother here?"

"Brother?" he sputters. "Whose?"

"Mine," I tell him as I try to stem the bleeding from the cut on Gilleasbachan's forehead—he can't heal and wraith blood doesn't clot... "Major, could you hand me one of those towels, please?"

"Mah God, what happened tae him?" Beckett gasps next to my elbow as he pulls on his own pair of gloves and I gently apply pressure to the bleeding cut. He nudges me aside so he can examine the cut before he begins pulling out a suturing kit.

"Being a queen's slave is not a pleasant position," I say as I dampen the towel, averting my eyes from the sight of Carson carefully stitching up my brother's face.

I uncover Gilleasbachan's right arm, bent in a way that arms were never meant to be bent and being to sponge away the grime. When I brush against what I can only assume is the broken edge of bone under the skin, Gilleasbachan begins to stir, tossing his head restlessly, his breath quick and panicked.

I strip off one of my gloves and begin to stroke his face and whisper to him soothingly. Suddenly, his eyes snap open, and he stares at me in shock, eyes glazed and delirious.

"Mama?" his voice is raw and cracked; with his left hand he reaches out to touch my face, but I push it gently back down onto the bed—it is too dangerous for him to move...

"_No, Gilleasbachan. It is Mairghread__," _I tell him softly, hoping to keep him calm, but this only agitates him more.

"_No no, we hid her! I can't let the queen get to her!"_ he struggles to rise as Carson and I try to hold him down without hurting him more, he is so fragile...

"_My brother, the queen is dead and I __am__ your sister! I am Mairghread!"_ I insist to him, holding his gaze, and cautiously linking minds. I am careful not to go too far; I do not want to hurt him, or dig too deep and destroy his trust. Still what I see is…horrifying, beyond anything I could have imagined…oh, spirits!

_Stop it! Leave them alone!_

_Foolish! Did you think that I would let you escape so easily? Death will not have you!_

"_Hush, Gilleasbachan,"_ I murmur, trying to disguise the sob that chokes my throat. "_You're safe now." _

Slowly, so slowly he relaxes, tears trickling from the corners of his eyes. "Mairghread?" he laughs and sobs; so many emotions vie for dominance on his face, his thought stumble, tumbling, jumbled in his mind overflowing to mine…

"_Yes_…_y__es, dearest, you're home now_" I smile reassuringly even as tears begin to flow down my own face. Someone taps my shoulder lightly and I turn to see Carson with syringe, the pink tape across the cap marking it as a mild sedative. His eyes ask me for permission, and I readily grant it—Gilleasbachan has suffered so much, there is no reason he should suffer more.

I do not think he notices the tiny prick as Carson eases the needle into the scant flesh of his arm—the taut muscles relax slowly, a look of peace comes to his face, though it is marred still by the pain which is seems to be irrevocably etched there.

How? The question flits through my mind, with so many subsequent clauses. How is he still alive? How did he manage to elude her? How could anyone do this? How could she do it? How can one person afflict another with such torment?

How?

How?

How?!

HOW?!

A touch on my arm brings me back to the present—Carson gives me a sympathetic smile, and silently encourages me to resume washing my brother so he can heal him, and I obey…

Oh, that Carson could heal him! If only it were as simple as making skin rejoin, bone knit together, but I know it will not, cannot be. Too much, too much has happened to Gilleasbachan—too much sorrow, too much hurt, too much

Torture.

The few images in his mind I saw terrify me, make me sick with their horror. Such abuse I could not have imagined, would not have thought anyone capable of!

How? How?! Damn it, HOW?!

"Mairghread?"

I jerk my head up, to see Carson looking at me with worried eyes.

"Are ye ahlraht lass?" he questions gently, placing a gloved hand on my shoulder—his hand is covered in blood, Gilleasbachan's blood…

…and now my shirt is too…

I nod, though somewhat shakily, trying to pull myself together—so much has happened…

"Yes, yes, just…" I trail off. Just what? Tired? Terrified?

He gives my shoulder an understanding squeeze and returns to his work of sewing my brother back together…

I force my mind to concentrate, my eyes to only focus on one inch of skin at a time, my hands to be steady as I coerce years, centuries, millennia of blood and dust and…I don't want to think what else…off Gilleasbachan's skin…

_So disobedient! Tsk tsk! You know you must be punished…_

_Forget your family! They are dead. There is no reason for you not to enjoy this…_

_Screams! Such terrible screams! How delicious!_

I need to keep my mind off these….visions… I call up from the depths of my mind memories of the before time; Gilleasbachan playing with Durhan and my other siblings in camp, both to entertain themselves and me while the adults made dinner. Him carrying me through the forest, because everyone was going swimming in the lake. His hair was black and thick, his arms strong; muscle stood out under flawless skin.

Now his hair is prematurely silvered in the front, and he is weaker than a newborn. Bones now protrude from under scarred and broken skin, highlighted by livid bruises.

I hate the queen for what she had done. She destroyed my family—did she have to destroy my brother as well?

**TBC **


	11. Fragile Vessel

**This Fragile Vessel**

* * *

**A/N--**for all of us for whom there was nowhere near enough Shepwhump in this episode.

* * *

"How is he, doc?"

Dad's rumbling voice cuts through the silence of the room, shattering, sending it skipping in a thousand directions. Carson and I both let go of breaths we didn't know we were holding as heavy sighs. I let the washcloth I'm using slap noisily back into the water.

"Ah'm not gonnae lie, tae ye lad," Dr. Beckett sighs. "He's nae good. Ah couldnae e'en tell ye what's keeping him alive at this point."

"He always was stubborn," I whisper to myself. "Athair used to say he had fathered the most stubborn wraith ever to be born." My eyes gaze sorrowfully on the wasted form of Gilleasbachan. "Nothing could keep him down."

Except maybe this…

No! Don't even think that! I WONT let him die like this. I won't! I won't! He deserves better.

I take up the washcloth again, trying to rinse out the blood and dirt before I realize that this washcloth is too filthy to use anymore.

"Damn," I mutter under my breath as I take the basin to the bathroom to refill. I only have Gilleasbachan's left leg to finish washing…but…it is so badly hurt, so obviously broken that even under the sedative I'm afraid I might cause him pain.

I watch the bloody, dirty water swirl down the sink drain, following it in my mind as it slowly gets absorbed by the ship, blood and dirt being recycled as much as the water….

How much of my brother's blood has this ship absorbed over the years? How much of my brother's own flesh went into making his stasis pod in the floor?

The basin is full of clean water now so I go back to the room and take up task again, determined that my brother will never, EVER have to experience horrors like those he suffered again.

"Well," announces John lightly as he hops off the other bed. "I you don't need me, I think I'm gonna explore this place. The sergeants here," he nods to Kafka and Kierkegaard, "will keep you company. Ronon, you coming?" he asks my dad, rather pointedly.

Dad's eyes flicker stonily in my brother's direction, but Carson shoos him away. "Go on, Ronon. He'll nae be wakin' soon, and he's in nae condition tae do ana'thin' if he did."

Arguing with Dr. Beckett is the ultimate experiment in futility, and even my dad knows this, so he pushes himself off the far wall and follows John to explore.

Free of distraction, I dedicate myself to the task at hand, namely washing my brother's leg without waking him. I pull a clean washcloth out of one of the packs and dip it in the warm water—I wish I had some of the juniper or lavender or jasmine oil that Dr. Sarah Keller gave me a few weeks ago as an "unbirthday present"—maybe it would cover the smell of antiseptic and blood.

Beside me, having cleaned and stitched the many wounds on my brother's chest, Carson begins attaching the lead wires to the portable EKG. Gilleasbachan is already attached to the machines that measures temperature and blood oxygen levels and I know enough about wraith physiology and the way that the machines take measurements to know that the readings are…not good. Even the oxygen we are giving him is not enough to bring his oxygen saturation to healthy levels. Now the EKG begins to beep out in time with his heart. beep…beep……..beep beep…beep…

Even in the electronic ping I can hear how weak his heart is…how it is struggling to force thin blood through leaking arteries, veins…

"Mairghread?" Dr Becket's gloved hand on mine brings me out of my thoughts and back to the solid reality. "Lass, let me finish this. Can ye start him on another bag o' saline and pop some o' those heat packs under tha blanket's with him? Thanks love."

I nod and mutely obey. More saline—Carson is desperately trying to keep Gilleasbachan's blood pressure high enough that his heart doesn't struggle more than it already is…I want to pour more of myself into him, but I have been forbidden—I am not as strong as when I left Atlantis this morning, and until I can eat a "substantial meal", healing my brother may hurt me. Dr Beckett told me to wait—if Gilleasbachan 'crashes' on the way home, they will need me, but until then, it does not help if I am unconscious beside him.

I crack the heat packs to start the exothermic chemical reaction and carefully place them around my brother under the warm, grey wool blankets.

Suddenly Gilleasbachan begins to moan again and thrash weakly. I hold him down by his shoulder's and glance over at Carson, who is carefully probing the break in my brother's leg.

"Stop!" I beg him. "You're hurting him!"

"I'm sorry," he mutters, "One moment more…" continuing his examination until Gilleasbachan manages to jerk his leg away from the hurtful fingers.

"Sguir! Mas e ur toil e!" Gilleasbachan begs, his eyes glazed and only half-open. His words cut through my heart—_stop, please_…what must he think is happening to him?

"Ist a-nis, a mhoigein," I murmur in his ear, stroking his cheek, trying to calm him with the simple phrase—_hush__ now sweetheart…_

"Done!" Carson puts his hands up in the air, turning to me with eyes brimming with apology. "Ah'm sorry, Ah truly am, but Ah had to see how bad the break is."

I nod, still trying to sooth my distraught brother. "Can't you do something?!" I shout at Carson—Gilleasbachan is in pain—how can I let him be in pain? I have to protect him…

"Aye," he sighs and digs a small IV bag from the packs and connects it to the main lead, adjusting the flow to a trickle so it blends with the saline as it makes its way to my Gilleasbachan's blood. "Morphine. Nothin' stronger Ah'm afraid."

Again I nod, silently running my fingers through my brother's silvered hair as his eyes flutter closed—there is so much pain in his eyes, so many horrors in his mind…how can I ever help him heal?

He is so cold…deathly cold…despite the chemical heat packs we have surrounded him with under the space blankets. I wonder though if soon he will burn with fever. My knowledge seems scant on this point. Will his frail body not fight the infections, and retain this deathlike chill? Or will it recognize the infection, and divert its scant resources towards building a fever?

So much torture…bits of memories continually flash through my mind, always from his eyes….hanging upside down, or worse, right-side up, but _hanging_, his throat being crushed by the rope until he could hope this was the last time, only to end up gasping on the floor again…. His feet beaten beyond recognition…. Burns with white embers…

The monitors beep softly at my feet, counting his heart beats, measuring the oxygen in his blood while the saline and morphine drip slowly through the line. _Beep __plapplap__…__beep…__plap__….__bebeep__…__plap__….beep_

"Now, lass, let's see what ye've done tae yer hands."

I jump as Dr Beckett appears silently next to me, his arms crossed, his countenance stern.

_Beep…__plap__…beep…__plap__…__bebeep__plap__…__plap__…beep…_

"Hop up there, next tae yer brother," he commands me, and I meekly obey, waiting for the lecture which will undoubtedly follow. Sgts. Kafka and Kierkegaard snicker quietly. For some reason, many of the humans find my complacent obedience amusing. Something, I suppose, to do with the fact that I am a wraith as tall, or taller, than most of them, many times stronger, and rather frightening looking, despite eschewing dark, 'gothic' clothing.

"Tsk tsk tsk. Ach! Lass, what did ye do tae yerself?" he clucks his tongue at me as he turns my raw hands over in his and then goes for his 'Mairghread bag'.

"Washed my hands really well?" I reply wryly with a shrug, my eyes wandering to watch Gilleasbachan sleep…peacefully is not the right word. Small muscles twitch in his face, his hand…a pained look never leaves his glazed, half-closed eyes…his breathing is ragged despite the oxygen…

"Ye nearly washed yer skin raht off!" he drags the table with the basin in front of me and positions my hands over it before rinsing them well with an antiseptic solution. "Why on earth did ye do sich a thing?"

"Touching the queen made me feel…tainted. Dirty. Contaminated. Polluted. Unclean," I whisper as he dries my hands gently and proceeds to cover them with a thick cream, mixed with antibiotic ointment.

"Next time, try _not_ tae use plumbers' soap, alraht lass?" he tells me long-sufferingly. He changes his gloves to non-cream covered ones and wraps my hands lightly in gauze before helping me to put on the cotton gloved he likes me to wear when my hands begin to chap from the dry air.

"I'll try," I promise him as he packs up his kit, my eyes again wandering to Gilleasbachan. "Carson, do you think…"

"Ah dunnae know, luv," he sighs heavily and crossed his arms, rocking lightly on his feet. "Just physically, he's in poor shape. Tha' arm an' leg an' his feet will need at least one surgery each, probably more, and ye ken better than Ah the risk of infection fer him."

I sigh, "And thousands of years of torture…."

"Aye." He runs his fingers through his hair.

Our radios crackle suddenly and Rodney's panicked voice screams over them "Beckett! Mairghread! Get down here NOW!!!"

"Rodney, where…" Carson begins, but I simply link with the ship again shove him out the door, telling him to follow my directions—I'll stay with my brother. I guide him through the corridors over Rodney's berating voice and Dad's reprimands for him to shut up.

I link with the ship's sensor's to get a vague, blurred picture of the room they are in, watching Carson burst into the room to find John rolling on the floor in agony while Rodney watches, unsure what to do, but yelling at him nonetheless to stop moving and wait for the witch doctor and Dad looking alert to danger.

"Wha' happened?" Beckett demands as he drops to kneel by Sheppard, who stops rolling on his stomach, revealing that the back of his shirt has been badly burned, and one has to assume that his back beneath is not much better.

In a flash, I recognize the room they are in, and begin laughing, forgetting that I still have my radio on.

"And what is so funny?" McKay asks tartly as I continue to laugh. "You told the ship to not accept destructive commands, and look what happens!"

"Turning on the stove is not generally considered a 'destructive' command, Rodney," I tell him with a grin as I mentally turn it off—nothing to cook at the moment.

"The _stove?!_" gasps Sheppard, his voice crackling over the radio. "Are you telling me I nearly sat on a _stove_?!"

"A stove set to high, in fact," I tell him as I open my eyes and return to my brother's side mentally, though I never left physically. "You got off lucky—the stove hasn't seen use in a long time, it could have been much hotter. Mairghread out."

Even with the gloves on, I cannot help the urge to touch my brother, to reassure myself that he is here, to comfort him with a gentle touch.

_Did you think that you could save your family, __amadon__? They are dead—but you will NEVER see them. This will be your punishment—you __don't__ care about your body…how much damage can I do your soul?_

_I'll__ never give in to you!_

_Oh, but I think you will…and I have all the time in the world to make you…_

"Sheppard, you, and _only_ you, could get injured by a _stove_ on a hive ship," Rodney taunts him as they burst into the room, John supported between Carson and Dad. I jump off my brother's bed to clear off the other one for John to lie down on. "Everyone else will wait for an ambush or a battle, but not you. Nope. Not Colonel Sheppard. He could suffer life-threatening injuries from an alien's kitchen!"

"One word McKay: citrus," John grinds out between clenched teeth while he waits for me to clean off the second bed. Dad helps him get up and lie on his stomach so Dr. Beckett can tend to him.

I do not know if it was because Gilleasbachan could no longer feel be by his side or if a sudden wave of pain broke through the morphine dyke, but he begins to thrash weakly and cry out.

"Hush, shh," I rush over and try to sooth my brother, who stills under my hand as I brush his hair back from his face. "_It__'__s alright. It's me. Remember?"_

"Mairghread?" he rasps. "_Water?_ _Please?_"

I grab a water bottle out of one of the packs and hold it to his lips, helping him to drink. He gulps it greedily until I pull it away.

"_Slowly, you'll make yourself sick!_" I chide him as I cap the bottle and set it out of sight.

His eyes dart over the room, and I can see the panic building—it breaks my heart to see him panic at the sight of a room...he was once so strong…so fearless…

"_Why are we still here?! Get me out! Please!_" he begs me, struggling to rise as I gently push him back down.

"_Hush, it's alright,"_ I reassure him, climbing up so I am sitting next to him on the bed. "_We're just waiting for the puddle jumper to come and take us back to Atlantis."_

_"Atlantis?__ No, they'll kill us, the __Lantæans__ will kill us!" _he is terrified at the idea, and fights to sit up and flee, but I am much stronger, and hold him still while I try to set his mind at ease.

If I had known all that she did to him before I killed her, I would not have given her such a merciful death!

"_No, Gilleasbachan, no.__ The __Lantæans__ are long dead! My friends live there now! Look!" _ I point over to where Carson now has John sitting up, his chest bare, drenched in sweat, and McKay is still teasing him. "_Car__son, he helped me clean you__, is making the pain go away. He is a healer. John, he helped me to find you, helped me carry you here. __Ronon, __McKay…he will make sure we get home safely,__" _ I tell my brother, who visibly relaxes somewhat. "Ronon," how do I explain that Ronon is my father, that he has taken care of me from infancy because Athair no longer could, "_has adopted me. I am his__ daughter."_

"_These humans…your friends?"_ he asks, still confused, troubled, and now drifting back to sleep under the effects of the morphine and his exhaustion. I can only hope that my words do not trouble him while he sleeps, he needs no more…

"_My family_," I reply. "_Go back to sleep. We'll be home soon."_

"Dachaigh," his eyes flutter closed, and his breathing evens out, leaving me alone to contemplate how such my brother's body, frail flesh, could hold such a fiery spirit for so long. It seems unfair that his physical form does not match his spirit in strength, tenacity. And now, it is only this fragile vessel that holds my brother here with me.

"Yes, home," I whisper back to him, though a terrible thought takes hold of my mind—my home is Atlantis, but is his home the Land Beyond the Stars? Home is supposed to be a place of healing—can I offer him even that or only more pain?

TBC

A/N--really sorry for the lack of updates, but I have a few weeks off, so I ought to be able to update more quickly. Thank you for everyone whose hung in there with me! Please leave me a review to let me know what you liked, what you didn't...

Sincerely, Cainwen

amadon--idiot, fool.


	12. Brother's Keeper

**Brother's Keeper**

* * *

Gaelic conversation in italics, others with translation at bottom.Dedicated to all EMSs, EMTs, medics and nurses who are there when you need them.

* * *

_Click __click__click__click__click__…_

I wake with a start at the sound of a gurney echoing through the halls. I don't remember falling asleep, but obviously I did, and I somehow ended up under the blankets next to Gilleasbachan. I vaguely wonder if Carson had anything to do with it…

"In here lads!" Carson calls out as I struggle blearily to extract myself from the tangle of blankets before the med team arrives—I would irrationally like to keep a shred of dignity in this horrendous day. But as soon as my body is no longer in contact with my brother's he awakes in a panic, his eyes wild in terror and confusion, still glazed with pain and painkiller, grasping for me with wasted arms and bony hands.

"Mairghread!" he rasps, dread dripping from that single utterance. "_Please, don't leave me alone with her!_"

I tuck my legs under myself as I gently hold his hands and lock his gaze with my own, speaking calmly, as to a child awakened from a nightmare. "_Gilleasbachan, the queen is dead, I promise you. She __can't__ hurt you anymore. __Ever."_

He shakes his head, terrified—I remember a newly arrived soldier having a similar look after his first encounter with the wraith ended with half of his team dead…his face bore the same marks of fear, but on my brother, it is inconceivably more terrible, for it is the fear born of many years of experienced horrors. "_When you leave, I'll wake up, and she'll be back and…I can't! I __can't__! I can't!" _ he sobs over and over, his skeletal fingers digging into my arm with strength I would not have believed him capable of.

"Gilleasbachan!" I shout, taking his face between my hands, bringing my face so close to his that our foreheads touch. "_Listen to me—this IS real. Feel me—I am flesh and blood. The queen is dead—I took her life with my own hand, she is dead. You are alive and awake. I will never leave you again."_ He still shakes his head, his eyes wide with fright, his body trembling with pain and exhaustion and fear. "_Gilleasbachan __MacCullough__! LISTEN TO ME! I AM REAL. I am Mairghread __Nic__Seàrlaid__, your sister! Believe me! No one can hurt you now! Look at me!"_

Slowly the seconds pass as I wait, holding his eyes with mine, waiting for him to believe me…slowly his breathing eases…slowly his eyes lose their glassy fear, drifting half closed…slowly his grip on my arms lessens…

And he is left drained…that damned queen—physically, she pushed him to the brink of death, dragging him back just as forcibly each time, but far worse is that mentally, emotionally, spiritually, she had all but broken him. And now, left with no one to fight, nothing to struggle against, he has collapsed, like someone pushing with all their might to keep a door from closing completely, only to have the door yanked open, and they fall forward onto the ground, lost.

Even his mental barriers, so strong, weaken without something to fight…and I feel how profoundly tired he is, in body…in heart…in mind…in spirit…

"Hey, how's our boy doing?"

I jump and spin around to see John standing behind me, shirtless, just a few gauze pads peeking around from his back…

Mmm, his muscles stand out, rippling under taut, tanned skin, now covered with a fine sheen of sweat. I wonder what he would look like without the rest of his clothes—

Stop that!

I mentally slap myself. He's your brother! He's another species for heaven's sake! Stop trying to undress him!

It's a shame he's from a different species, really…

He saved you as an infant! Stop it!

I sigh, pushing these intrusive thoughts from my mind and flash John a tired smile. "Not too well. Being a queen's slave is…" I swallow sickly—what words are there to describe it? The words that come to mind—terribly, horribly, horrendous, unspeakable, horrific, dreadful—can never encompass it, never express it as it truly is—language fails…

He nods, as sympathetic as anyone can be who has not endured it, and turns his cheerful charm on Gilleasbachan.

"Hey there, Gil, how ya doin'?" John asks my brother, his casual joviality back in full force. Any injury to himself seems to demand an increase in relaxed attitude.

Gilleasbachan looks from John to me, with a look that, under less strained circumstances I would translate as "what the hell did he just say?!"

"Gilleasbachan does not speak English, John," I tell the man quietly, as I begin quietly stroking Gilleasbachan's hair with one hand to keep him calm.

"What?" John looks confused. "The queen spoke it well enough."

"I know," I explain patiently. "But I believe she simply 'hacked' into Graydon or Dickenson's mind, found the 'language center', as Dr. Beckett calls it, and copied. She could have learned perfect English in three seconds."

"So why doesn't he just, I dunno, link minds with you or something?"

"To link minds requires trust, or force, neither of which he has at the moment." These humans are rather frustrating. Just because they can walk, does that mean they are able to all the time? They eat, but are there not times when they can't or don't want to?

An idea occurs to me and I flash John a smile, which makes him cringe.

"I know that smile," he shakes his finger at me accusingly. "That's the smile that says 'I'm gonna teach you something new', and it's never about a new weapon or airplane."

I shake my head with silent laughter, still stroking my brother's ragged locks. "I'm just going to teach you a few things in our language. Just to talk to him for a moment, so I can discuss moving him with Dr. Beckett. Let's start with 'hi, how are you?'"

John shrugs, winces and says, "Yeah, sure. Okay. You know I can never say no to you."

I grin broadly and begin: "Halo, ciamar a tha thu hein?" I say it slowly, and then gesture for John to parrot it back to me.

" Ah-low, chye am-are ah ha hoo hane?" he nearly butchers the simple phrase, but I smile encouraging, and indicate that he needs to say it to Gilleasbachan now.

"Kie am are ah ha hoo hane?" he says somewhat…hammishly to my brother, who, for the first time, smiles slightly at the absurdity of John trying to speak our tongue, looks at John and then me, asking, "_What did he say?"_

_"He asked how you are, though rather badly I admit,"_ I laugh with him before Sheppard breaks in.

"Hey, hey, stop laughing at me when I can't understand you!"

"Sorry," I snicker at the mock-indignant look on John's face, and for the briefest of moments I would swear that Gilleasbachan did too. "Here, just talk to him for a moment. If he looks confused or upset, just say, 'Tha e ceart agad'."

"Which means…?"

"It's okay."

"Sheesh!" John shakes his head. "Only you could have a seven syllable sentence for 'kay."

I move to clap him on the shoulder, only to remember in time that it was probably tender to the touch, and so ended up patting him on the top of his head instead, which brings a smile to his face. "Good man." I turn back to Gilleasbachan. "_Gilleasbachan, I am just going to go talk to Dr. Beckett about getting you out of here. Okay? John is going to keep you company."_ I can see his fear and panic rising again, so I move to quell it quickly. "_Shh__, no __no__, don't worry. I'm just going to be over there, see?" _I point to Carson, speaking with the medics not 6 feet from us. "_I'll be right back. I promise."_ Reluctantly, he nods and lets go of my arm, which he had never really released. As I jump off the bed and walk over to Carson, I hear John begin chatting to Gilleasbachan lightheartedly.

"Carson?" I break in on the conversation tentatively, ducking my head into their circle so that I join them. "What do you want to do?"

The Scotsman sighs heavily and runs a hand through his hair, unintentionally spiked from that constant motion. "Ah'm afraid the best thing would be tae sedate him again. It will hurt him tae move an' he's so fragile…"

I sigh and bow my head in aquiesence. I do not like it particularly, but it is the best way. I do not imagine Gilleasbachan would do well in a jumper crowded by strangers for hours on end.

"Just let me explain it to him. That's all I ask."

Carson nods his head. "Of course. We'll be a few minutes yet."

I return to Gilleasbachan's side, where John is still talking to him.

"Now, see Gil, there is a problem with joining an international expedition. People can be right in front of you and you still have no idea what they're saying!" he's telling Gilleasbachan, who smiles at him strangely, and then worriedly when John tries to throw his hands in the air only to hiss and wince when it pulls the burned skin on his back. Sheppard quickly recovers, noticing Gilleasbachan's concerned look, says, "No, it's okay! Um, ha ee kert ah gad!"

Again, for the briefest of seconds, I would have sworn that Gil snickered. Father said that John reminded him of Gilleasbachan, perhaps he will help my brother heal, I think, but immediately the empty, despairing look is in his eyes again.

I hop up next to my brother once again and smile at both of them. John returns my grin and announces to Gilleasbachan, "You see, I told you she'd be right back."

I shake my head in mock despair. "John Sheppard, you are incorrigible," I tell him before turning to my brother. "_Gilleasbachan, we are going to get in a ship and return to my home now. Dr. Beckett is going to give you something to make you sleep—I promise, when you wake up, __I'll__ be there and you'll be safe. Do you believe me?" _More slowly this time, he nods nervously, though I feel the terror building up in the back of his mind. "_It will be a few minutes. I'm just going to make sure your__ blankets are arranged right, okay?"_

I jump down again and begin my semi-pointless task of "fixing" the blankets—it's an excuse of course to let John continue to talk to him while I'm close enough for Gilleasbachan to be comfortable.

I am told that Sheppard has a great deal of experience with this. Before I came, several wraith soldiers were captured and John would first name them and then talk at them. Actually, from what I hear, that is his response to many situations. Babble and prattle on until they knock him out or otherwise force him to be quiet.

Oddly enough though, Gilleasbachan seems to like it, despite the fact that I don't think he understands a word of what John is saying. Gently, I nudge his mind, asking him if he would like to understand John's language. Tentatively, he consents, and in short order I have carefully fed him all my knowledge of English and basic phrases in several of the other earth languages he will encounter.

"Now, Rodney can be a real pain in the ass sometimes," John tells Gilleasbachan as Dr. Beckett approaches and indicates to me that he will administer the sedative in a moment through the IV line. "Brilliant scientist, but an ego the size of a small moon."

"Ego?" rasps Gil with a small smile as the sedative flows milkily down the plastic tubing towards his veins.

John snaps his head around to look at me, wincing as he does. "I thought he didn't speak English."

I grin mischievously at him as I stroke Gil's hair as his eyes drift closed. It can be great fun messing with John sometimes. "He didn't, until three minutes ago."

"Ugh!" Sheppard expostulates exasperatedly and heads out into the hallway. "Come on, Ronon. Let's get out of here. I've had enough for one day. Maybe enough for a week. What do you think?"

I share a smile with Carson at John's antics before stepping back to let the medical team move Gilleasbachan to the gurney and move him out along with all the equipment.

As we walk towards the jumper, I cannot help but stare at my brother's haggard face, pained and troubled even in the dreamless sleep of Dr. Beckett's medicine.

I must help him. If I cannot help my brother, who can?

TBC

A/N: I am so sorry I did not update sooner! Jetlag is a bitch. Anyway. Will keep updating, I promise. And Please review! It keeps Steve Plushie from hitting me! Ow, stop that, ow! Please, save the author!


	13. Pain

**Pain**

* * *

**Warning**-this is a very dark chapter, with graphic scene**s** of torture and sexual abuse. You have been warned.

* * *

As soon as we reach the jumper, John makes a break for the pilot seat only to be stopped dead in his tracks by Dr. Beckett's barked command.

"Stop right there Colonel! Ye'll nae be flying this thing taeday!" Carson informs Sheppard as the gurney bearing Gilleasbachan is rolled into the back and the wheels locked into place.

"Aw, cummon Carson! It's a sunburn for pete's sake!"

But Dr. Beckett is adamant. "Nae, its not! Ah seem tae recall something aboot ye and Ronon here being half-drowned before Rodney even had the time tae turn on the lights!" a thought seems to strike him. "In fact, all of ye! Mairghread, Ronon, Rodney, John, sit! Back here where I can see ye!"

"What?! Carson, have you lost what little mind you had?! I am NOT sitting next to a sick wraith! Who knows what he has!" Rodney explodes and then considers, "No offence Mary."

"Carson, who do you think is gonna fly this thing?" demands John at the same time as Rodney's outburst, arms stubbornly crossed over his chest in a sign of defiance.

"The same who brought it here!" Carson hisses back at him, stopping just short of shouting remembering Gilleasbachan sleeping restlessly beside him. "Sgt Kafka, please get us out of here. We'll pick up Teyla and Dr. Weir and return to Atlantis quick as this overgrown lorry can take us." He dismissively turns his back on a spluttering John and Rodney, checking my brother's vitals as Sgts Kafka and Kierkegaard take the pilot and copilot's seats respectively.

It's almost unheard of for Dr. Becket to give orders outside of his surgery…even if no one else notices, I can sense how very…troubled he is about all this. Carson is acutely aware of everything that can go wrong with a body under so much water and he is out of his element.

Moreover, I know Michael is on his mind.

Mum tells me I have done a great deal to assuage the guilt and grief that the Atlanteans and especially Carson feel for what happened to Michael, but I think that for Carson, there will always be the fear that any wraith brought in will end up as another Michael. For him, there will always be penance to pay for that great collection of sins.

But at last, even thick-skulled Rodney and stubborn John recognize that this is neither the time nor the place to mess with Dr. Beckett, and so consent to sitting "shot-gun" behind the pilot and copilot seats.

Suddenly, the words click into place in my mind.

"Dr. Weir?" I squeak, my voice suddenly high and childish. What am I going to say? How can I possibly excuse not consulting her about my brother? How can I plead for him? How—

"Mary, chill! That's my job," Sheppard informs me from his place up front—did I say all that out loud?—once again a calm military commander. "Great thing about chain of command—it all comes back to me."

But despite John's reassurances and Dad's arm wrapped comfortingly and protectively around my shoulder, I feel an overwhelming sense of dread as the hatch opens a few too-short minutes later to reveal Mum and Dr. Weir waiting to go home.

A mixed look of relief, concern and pity passes over Mum's face when she takes stock of all of our conditions, all alive and well except for John's new bandages and my brother, so obviously treading near the edge of the cliff of death.

Dr. Weir's face is one of…hatred, horror, disgust, like she were looking at the half-decayed corpse of a monster.

"What is this? What is going on? Rodney? John?" her rage is barely contained…

"Now, just, hang on a minute, Elizabeth," John wheedles in his best convincing voice as he stands up and makes calming, conciliatory gestures with his hands, a boyish grin plastered to his face. "This was on my authority. Prisoners on captured enemy vessels are a military concern. Besides, he's Mairghread's brother and his time was running out."

Dr. Weir's eyes are hard and she stalks aggressively through the back of the jumper to stand nose to nose with Colonel Sheppard. "John, it's a _wraith_," she spits out the last word like a profanity.

"I know that, Elizabeth. The green skin is kinda a give-away," John is speaking slowly, almost carefully…again, I can't help but feel like something is going on with Dr. Weir that John, Dr. Beckett and a few others know, but aren't telling, aren't going to act on yet…but they're still treating her like an unstable isotope.

"John—" Dr. Weir begins to growl before Dr. Beckett cuts her off.

"Elizabeth," he breaks in, semi-apologetically, but brooking no argument, "Ah agree tha' the colonel should've asked ye first, but wha's done is done. He's mah patient now—an' Ah need tae get him tae mah infirmary, yesterday."

Dr. Weir glares, but gives in. John cedes her his seat, and claims a place in the back with us next to one of the medics, an attractive Frenchwoman. "Hi, how ya doin'?" he smiles at her.

I sigh, and lean back against the hard cold metal of the jumper. I am overcome with a tiredness that will not be denied and I cannot help but yawn. Dr. Beckett does not miss it, and lays a hand on my shoulder.

"Get some sleep lass," he tells me. "Ye need it."

I can't argue, and let myself slide into the warm nothingness of sleep…

"You shouldn't have tried that," a seductive voice purrs in my ear. "I told you, I'm not going to let you have your family—Death can't have you."

My eyes snap open, and I find myself hanging my wrists in a dark room in a hiveship—my neck is on fire and I feel…weak…a weakness that is terrifying—

"I really ought to punish you…" the voice continues as its owner walks into my field of view…

The Queen?!

She trails her hand down my chest—but it is not my chest…wasted, flat, scarred, dirty….male…

"But first, we can't have you starving, can we?" she murmurs in a dangerous, friendly tone as she walks away to my left. My eyes follow her, and to my horror, she walks over to a woman, a human, gagged and kneeling between two guards. I try to scream as the queen's hand plunges towards the woman's chest, but my voice won't cooperate—nothing but a quiet, strangled cry can force itself past the fire in my throat as I watch the murderer drain the woman's life, as she ages and withers to a desiccated husk.

She stands up, watching the drops of crimson blood dribble down her hand with a…carnal pleasure. She turns and walks…seductively over to me—no, no don't you dare! No! I writhe and twist, trying to get away as she stretches out her hand towards me. I wont take that woman's life, even by proxy! I wont I wont I wont I wont!

But there is nothing for me to brace myself against, no way for me to get away from her bloodied hand and the stolen life. My motions become more frenzied as she closes in—suddenly, with a sickening pop my shoulder erupts from its socket, like the cap coming off a volcano, white-hot pain sears and oozes its way from my shoulder, down my arm, my chest…

"Tsk tsk," she shakes her head as she grins demonically, pleased with the sight of me hanging lopsided, one arm straining to its limits, the other as useful as a fire for keeping ice. "You're just making it harder on yourself."

NO! I want to scream as she forces life into me, but even as my throat heals, I can't—I can't breathe, I can't scream, I can't see for the red fog which envelopes my senses like water does a drowning man.

Her hand retracts, and with it the fog, and I am left gasping and cursing her and the womb that bore her. She just smiles at me, stretching out her hand to trail down my chest…a part of my anatomy that I shouldn't have twitches in response to her touch, despite my willing it not to—her touch is hateful, not arousing, but my body refuses to obey my mind—I can no more stop my body from reacting to her touch than I could stop her from killing that woman.

She grins, a feral, sensuous, repulsive smile at my flesh's reaction to her touch, and then she pulls a knife from her belt, trailing it around my shoulders, my back and lower—I want to scream, to curse to kill her, but my voice won't obey, my legs won't kick her…

She stands in front of me, the cut-throat whore, places one hand behind my head, and then kisses me, forcing her tongue into my mouth, sucking at mine till I can't feel it, biting my lips so I can taste blood, and I can't do anything—

Pain—she has stabbed me, dragging the knife down my stomach, cutting me open like a fish to be gutted.

She pulls back and licks her lips, enjoying the taste of my blood, then she licks the edge of the knife. "I told you," she purrs as she slips her hand into the wound, into my gut, "I should punish you…but I think you should enjoy this…"

Oh, Spirits, no, please no! Her hand snakes through my guts, lower, lower, even as her other hand does the same on the outside and her mouth presses itself to mine...please, no, no no no!!!

"Mairghread!"

A sharp pain across my face—

"Mairghread, wake up!"

My eyes snap open to see Carson, John and Dad looking at me with fear and worry in their eyes—my shoulder burns and I'm trembling violently, shaking my head, and muttering.

"Please, no, don't let her, please, please no!" I babble as I try to sit up—the queen, she'll get me, she'll…

"Mairghread, stay still!" Dr. Beckett commands me as John and Dad press me down onto the hard, cold floor of the jumper. "Ye've dislocated your shoulder. Ah need to put it back. Just let me get something…"

It was a dream—Gilleasbachan's nightmare…the nightmare he lived…

"No," I pant, trying to separate dream from reality by shaking my head, "I'll need all my strength. Just do it."

Carson frowns, but nods. "Ronon, John, hold her still."

I close my eyes as he takes hold of my arm… "One, two, three!"

"Ah! Gah…" I gasp as the pain ebbs and he guides my arm to rest on my chest.

"God, Carson, do you _have _to do that? It was bad enough the first time…" I hear Rodney complain from the front.

"Shut up McKay," John shouts back to the front as he and Dad help get me up to the bench. I hold my sore arm to my chest, the nightmare all too vivid in my mind. John turns to me, his eyes kind and concerned. "Hey, Mary, you okay?"

I gulp in the cool air, trying to slow my racing heart, and nod. "Mm-hmm. Just a nightmare—at least Gilleasbachan doesn't have to deal with them anymore…"

"Why not?" he looks so confused…I could almost laugh…

"My mental powers are the stronger—I take on the nightmares…" I explain quietly.

"But—"

Carson breaks in, a sling in hand. "No more questions. Here," he guides my arm into the sling. "Try to rest—we're almost back tae Atlantis. Ah want an x-ray of tha' shoulder before ye do anathin' else."

I'm too tired to argue. Too much. Too much pain. Too many problems. Too many revelations. Too many things I need to face. Too many decisions.

"Hey," Dad pulls me onto his lap, guiding my head to rest in the crook between his neck and his shoulder, like I was a little girl again. I may be taller than most of the people in Atlantis, but Dad will always be able to hold me on his lap. "Relax."

I sigh, closing my eyes and letting the sound of his blood rushing through his body—the sound of life—fill my senses. The nightmare was just that—a nightmare that I can wake up from and be comforted. I can leave death and rest in the arms of life. It was not real for me.

But it was real for Gilleasbachan. His nightmare was real, something he couldn't wake up from, and there was no one to comfort him then.

Is there any comfort sufficient now?

TBC

A/N--sorry I couldn't give you a happy chapter for Christmas, but...I'll try to update quickly. Happy Hanuka, Kwanza, Christmas, birth of Mirthras, winter solstice, miscellaneous winter holidays everyone!


	14. End the Heartache

**End the Heartache**

* * *

To be, or not to be, —that is the question: —  
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer  
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune  
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,  
And by opposing end them?—To die, —to sleep, —  
No more; and by a sleep to say we end  
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks  
That flesh is heir to, —'tis a consummation  
Devoutly to be wish'd.—_Hamlet _Act II, scene 1

* * *

The hours ooze by, painful in their unwillingness to pass and release us to the ocean's surface and Atlantis home.

Try as I might to rest, to conserve the energy I know I will need later to heal Gilleasbachan, I can't. My shoulder healed hours ago, but Dr. Beckett refuses to let me take it out of the sling until he has a chance to x-ray it and make sure that I didn't chip any bones.

My fingers itch to heal my brother, even a little, to just ease his breathing, repair broken arteries so he isn't constantly loosing blood, or even to just send him into a deeper sleep, one beyond dreams…

I try to sit still, to rest between Dad and John, but rest is a stranger to my mind, where my nightmare, my brother's nightmare, my brother's life is playing in a sickening loop, and with it comes a thousand questions, terrible and unanswerable.

Why? Why would anyone, even a fiend from the depths of the Earthling's Hell do something so…horrifying, so dreadful to another being? What kind of sick, diseased mind thinks that raping a prisoner from the inside is…amusing? Pleasurable? If that was what she considered pleasure, what was punishment? What was torture? How did my brother survive?

Did he survive?

All these questions and more swirl through my mind in a nauseating maelstrom from which I can no more escape than my brother from his subaqueous tomb, short of rescue or death.

Death—it is a dreadful reflection, but…was rescue what my brother hoped for? Would not death be a kinder fate than torturous healing, perhaps existence beyond hope of healing but removed from death's peace?

The sedative Carson gave him before we left has at last begun to wear off, and Gilleasbachan is twitching, his limbs convulsing as though in a nightmare, his head tossing from side to side on his pillow, leaving dark stains where soak-through gauze pressed against the white of the pillowcase.

Carson notices my brother's restlessness as well, and begins to prepare another dose of the sedative, when suddenly the monitor on the floor begins to beep insistently and erratically, before emitting a single, held tone—Gilleasbachan's heart has stopped.

Carson and the two medics leap to their feet, calling out orders in their medical shorthand—

…and all the while, there is no heart beat…

Syringes are pulled, equipment unpacked—

…the strong beating I heard in my dreams, remembered from infancy is silent…

All my wonderings, all my thoughts of whether death would be kinder than life are irrelevant in a instant. Before I am conscious of the decision, of the act, my hand is flying to my brother's chest. Before anyone else can react, I am pouring myself into him, life for life, my heart beating for his, my lungs drawing air, my blood, my life flooding his body…

Distantly I hear someone telling me to stop, it's enough, Gilleasbachan's heart beats on its own, but so close to him, I know that it is not enough. He is still too weak, like an unborn child needs the nourishment of my body if he is to survive…

…beneath my hand, his heart contracts of its own accord, a steady rhythm, his chest expands, filling bruised and congested lungs with stale, antiseptic, oxygen-rich air…

The voices tell me to stop, I'm killing myself…

…but there is so much damage, and I have some strength left to spare—I concentrate my energies on healing arteries and veins so he does not bleed to death…

So cold…I am cold…so cold…dark…and…cold…Gilleasb—

TBC

A/N: sorry its so short, but I thought it should be its own chapter. More to come, quickly I hope. In answer to some questions, yes Michael is out there breeding his bug things in my AU, and he will hopefully turn up sooner or later. But now I have a question to ask you. Should I get rid of Weir in this AU? I have a way, and I never liked her, but I wanted to gage your reaction. Weir out, Carter in?


	15. Harsh Dreams

**Harsh Dreams**

* * *

"Mairghread." 

The voice, familiar, longed for…

"Athair!" I cry, opening my eyes, only to find myself once again in the foggy world of our dreamed conversations, held across unfathomable distance. Athair stands far off, his shoulders bent as under a heavy load—his whole body, his whole countenance radiates exhaustion. In my mind, I run towards him until a thick, impenetrable, invisible force holds me back.

"Mairghread, what have you done? You've drained yourself, almost to the point of death, I can feel it. What were you thinking?!" my father's face is contorted with anger…concern…fear…

"Athair, Gilleasbachan is alive! But Athair, he was hurt so badly, I had to—" I begin, my words tumbling over themselves as I try to explain what happened as quickly as possible. Athair holds up his hands halting my rapid and confused explanation.

"Mairghread, slow down…. Wait, did you say Gilleasbachan is alive?" a strange look passes over his face; he had never hoped for this…to think that two of his children escaped the queen's genocide…

But I'm not sure we both survived.

"Yes," I nod vigorously before letting my sorrow seep into my voice. "But Dadaigh, the queen, she…she kept him as her slave. I don't know how he survived after all she did to him." I pause, bowing my head. "I'm not sure his spirit _did_ survived. I'm not sure that death isn't the kindest—"

"No, Mairghread!" Athair cuts me off sharply, angrily, before saying quietly. "Never say that."

He looks so…old…so tired. It hits me, like a wall of water, shocking and soaking—Athair has longed for death, knows what it is to long for that sweet release from pain and captivity…

"I am sorry, Dadaigh," I whisper, suddenly feeling guilty, guilty that I alone from all my family should survive the queen's wrath unscathed but for the memory of what she did to my kin.

His countenance softens, and he smiles slightly while a look of thoughtfulness passes over his face. In a moment, his face again hardens, a hard decision made.

"Mairghread, you must not let Gilleasbachan give in. You must help him," he commands, begs me.

I want to help him, but I don't know that I can—physical damage is easily repaired, but the hurt done to his mind, his spirit? I am alone, I don't know I can absorb enough of his pain…

Athair seems able to read my mind. "I will try to help you," he reassures me, reaching out to me only to be stopped by the invisible barrier. "But I cannot promise to be always there."

"Dadaigh," I feel suddenly afraid, afraid that he will leave and I'll never see him again…

He glances over his shoulder as if someone beyond my sight were calling to him and he begins to fade. "I won't leave you forever, child. Go to sleep now…"

"Dadaigh!"

Darkness…

Cold…

Silence…

Weight...

Warmth…

Weakness…

Noise…voices talking, shouting, barking…chairs creaking…wheels squeaking…machines clunking…

Light.

My eyes snap open only to be greeted by the harsh glare of infirmary exam lights. I scrunch them closed, turning my head to bury my face in the cool darkness of the pillow.

Fire…every sinew of my body is on fire with hunger, craving energy…

Bed springs squeak next to me, protesting motion…

"Hey Doc, she's awake!"

Dad! I hear him call out to Carson, and then a soft _click_ as the light over my head is turned off. More slowly this time, I open my eyes to blessed dimness and turn to see my dad standing beside my bed, dressed in the white patient scrubs. Before I have time to react, he has lifted me to a sitting position and is holding me tight in a crushing hug.

My body feels strangely…heavy, leaden. I can't seem to gather the energy to return the hug, or even to hold up my own head…

And, blessed be the Spirits, no energy to give into the basic instinct to feed…

Breaking the embrace, Dad holds me at arm's length—I try to hold up my head, but it flops back of its own accord—and shakes me slightly. "Don't you _ever_ do that again!" he shouts, angry and worried, before pulling me to himself again and wrapping me in a less crushing embrace, one huge hand cradling my lolling head as he whispers, "I couldn't lose you."

"I'm sorry, Dad," I whisper back, the loudest I can manage. The hunger, it hurts so badly, and I am so tired…

"Ah agree with Ronon, lass," Dr. Beckett says on my other side. "Ye try somethin' like tha' again, Ah'll be keeping ye here till Christmas three years from now!"

Dad releases me, only to catch me again and lower me more slowly to the pillow, my body as limp and uncontrolled as one of my dolls. "What's wrong with her?" he demands, an edge of fear to his voice, though I can't be sure anyone but I heard it.

Carson flashes his penlight into my eyes, the light cutting into me as painfully as any knife. He listens to my heart with his stethoscope, and then rocks back on his heels to make his diagnosis.

"She nairly killed herself wi' tha' stunt o' hers," he turns his angry gaze to me. "Ye drained yerself severely, lass. Yer body is nae gonnae let ye have anathin' extra. But," he points to the IV bags hanging from the pole by my bed, "We've got ye on IVF, an' Ah'll have Kathy bring ye somethin' tae eat, build up yer strength." He looks to Dad. "Ye'll help her, Ah supposed."

"Yep," Dad responds laconically.

Carson smiles. "Good."

"Carson," I whisper, my voice weak and harsh in my own ears. "Gilleasbachan?"

The smile disappears, replaced with a worried frown and knit eyebrows. He crosses his arms over his chest in the manner that says the news is bad, not deathly bad, but neither is it good.

He sighs heavily. "Ah don't need tae gi'e ye the laundry list, Ah'm sure. He's alive, an' stable for the moment. Though Ah dunnae approve, tha' stunt did slow the bleeding considerably—just some minor bleeding from capillaries and smaller veins. Ah have him sedated an' in the scanner at the moment. Then we'll put him in one of the isolation rooms."

"Can I see him? Please?" I'm not asking, I'm begging. In my own ears, I sound childish, desperate. Which is exactly what I am—more desperate to see my brother than I am to feed—on anything, to slake this thirst, smother this fire, shake off this leaden blanket…

A nurse appears in my peripheral vision, bearing a steaming mug of what I assume to be the broth. Dad reaches over me to accept it while Dr. Beckett raises the head of my bed slightly so I am half sitting without risking falling over. Dad holds the cup to my mouth so I can sip through the straw—it is warm and slightly thick—hot consommé instead of the usual thin broth used to reacclimatize the starved to food.

Mmmm—I can feel the warmth spreading through my body, at once invigorating and relaxing. I can feel it—the energy in the broth, in the IVF, seeping into my body, cooling the fire of hunger, easing the crushing weight that sits on my chest, makes it difficult to breath.

"Tha' it, luv," Carson give my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "When ye've done wi' tha', Ah'll tell the nurses tae bring ye tae Gilleasbachan. The scan's almost done."

"Tapadh leat," I murmur, my voice still weak, childish, almost broken, and so tired sounding. Despite the energy I feel flowing into my body, by the time I have drained the mug, I feel sleep reaching out to embrace me, promising regeneration, peace.

" Go on," Dad tells me when he puts the mug on the tray. "Go to sleep. I'll wake you up when they bring your brother."

"Dad—" I start, knowing how much this bothers him, what my race did to him, reading the tension in every fibre of his frame knowing that there is another wraith in his territory—I'm not sure I count as a wraith in his eyes anymore. One of the veteran nurses, who had seen "Steve", "Bob" and "Micheal", once confided in me that she had a hard time thinking of me as a wraith, but more like a another species, one that happened to look like the wraith, like replicators look like humans. My mind is as exhausted as my body—it's running away with whatever skitters across it…

"Uhn-uh," he cuts me off as he jumps back onto his own bed and settles against the pillows, like the lions from the earth movies lounging on a rock face. "Sleep. Talk later."

I open my mouth to protest, but sleep is calling, so sweet…so soft…so…

TBC

A/N: Yes, I know, not a whole lot of action, but we're getting there! Hopefully, more updates soon, if I can stay awake enough--coffee, where's my coffee?! Please Review!

Dadaigh--Daddy

Taph leat--thank you


	16. Harsher Realities

**Harsher Realities**

* * *

Beep…beep…beep…

Insistent. Rhythmic.

Annoying.

As usual, the soft electronic blip of the heart monitor counting off my heartbeats breaks through the blissful silence of sleep and drags me back to world of wakefulness.

And a world of panic as I become aware of something snaking up my nose and down my throat. Blind panic, sheer animal terror crushes me, makes me claw at my face, scream, "Get it out! Get it out!! GET IT OUT!!!"

Hands, cool, calm, strong, take hold of my wrists, pull them away from my face while the accompanying voice whispers gentle reassurances.

"Mairghread, shh, calm down. Calm down, Mairghread."

I know that voice, those hands, this cadence.

"Mum?" My vision, blinded by overly bright lights and panic clears to reveal the isolation room—bright, large, high ceilings and glass walls, opaque to me but transparent to those on the other side—and hovering in my vision, Mum's face, a little pale, a little wan, a lot tired.

"Yes," she sighs and glances over her shoulder, raising her eyebrows as though to call someone over.

"What is this?! Get it out!" my hands scrabble once again to tear out the offending tube, only to have Mum one again restrain my hands—it is a sign of how weak I am that she is able to do so. If I were in full health, a team of marines would have trouble holding me back.

"Mairghread, stop!" she commands me sharply, and I obey, ceasing my frantic struggling. "Dr. Beckett put in a feeding tube to help you regain your strength more quickly. I am aware that it is…uncomfortable, but please leave it," she ends more gently, lowering my hands to rest at my sides before raising the head of my bed so I am almost sitting up.

Now that the panic is gone, I can see the wisdom of the feeding tube—my hunger has been deadened to dying coals, like a fever that is more of an irritant than a danger. I can hold up my head, my arms with no trouble, though I can still feel the extreme weariness which is less due to the need for energy than it is a reminder that I am inexperienced at healing. Like an untrained man climbing a mountain because of the force of circumstances feels battered the next day, so does my body remind me that it is untrained for such exertions as I put it through to save my brother.

My brother—Gilleasbachan! The sedative must have worn off by now, he will be panicking…Ah! I see him,not ten feet away on my left, lying in a bed much like my own.

"Gilleasbachan! I have to see him!" I lung forward towards my brother, only to jerk to a halt when strong hands grab my shoulders. "Mum! Let go! I have to see him!"

"Hang on lass," Dr. Beckett appears from nowhere (at last!), pulling off his stethoscope and warming the bell in the palm of his hand before slipping it under my scrub top and over my heart. "He'll nae notice if ye take a moment for me tae check ye over. He's sleeping quite nicely."

Dr. Beckett frowns slightly as he listens to my heart and lungs—I can only assume he does not like the way my heart is racing and fluttering in my panic and haste—but seems satisfied none the less. He smiles and taps the feeding tube taped across my face. "Ah assume ye'd prefer this tae come out."

Sweet relief! "Yes please!"

He chuckles as he starts to position me part-way sitting up, supported by pillows, and spreads a towel across my chest. "I thought so." He clamps off the flow of liquid nutrition through the tube and flushes it with water and air. "This will be a mite uncomfortable," he warns me as he untapes the tube from my face and gets a good grip on it. "Hold your breath, and try to relax. One, two three."

Gah! It's like vomiting in slow motion through my nose and I cannot help but gag and cough as Carson pulls it out and tosses it into a nearby biohazard container.

Eventually, my gag reflex calms down enough for me to choke out, "Can I see him _now_?"

Mum exchanges an exasperated glance with Carson before joining him on the other side of the bed. "Of course lass. Here," he helps me to swing my clumsy legs around and unlocks the wheels to the IV pole. "Watch the lines now."

I slide off the bed to land on legs wobblier than unset cafeteria jello and be caught by Mum and Dr. Beckett before I land on my face. "I'm alright," I reassure them before they can begin to worry or send for wheelchairs or, worse, put me back in bed. "Just a little dizzy." It's a total lie and I can tell from Dr. Beckett's face that he doesn't believe me in the least—my legs are slowly holding more and more of my weight, but their also shaking like a crystal in front of a stereo.

"One step at a time, don't rush it," he mutters the physical therapy mantra as we cross the 10 foot gap like insane contestants in a multi-leg race. By the time I reach his bed, my legs give out completely—my body letting me know in no uncertain terms that, quite frankly, it doesn't have the energy for such exercise—and I land hard in the plastic bedside chair by grace of Mum and Carson guiding my fall.

"Careful now! Ach, I should have made you use a wheelchair," he mutters as he checks my IV to make sure it didn't pull out. "Ye see? We've taken good care of him."

Now that I see him, all my worries seem like the terrified, inane ramblings of someone newly awoken from a nightmare then the justified fears of a concerned sister and caretaker.

They have given him a real bath, washing away the last lingering odor of death and decay from the hiveship. His hair has been rid of the clotted blood and grim, combed free of knots and tangles—it shimmers damply on the pillow, silky as my own. The faint, clean odor of infirmary soap, like sweet almonds, hovers around him like a warm cocoon, soothing and safe. Temporary casts have been set on his arms and legs; even under the blankets, his legs seem terribly thin, delicate, brittle in comparison. White gauze on his exposed skin makes him seem both pale and slightly healthier—his skin is not so white as the gauze, there is a touch of color in his face.

He looks almost young, child like, his features relaxed and smooth in dreamless slumber…and yet, he looks old. The silvery white hair creeping back from his temples, like snow covering an obsidian plain. The fine web of wrinkles around his eyes, his mouth, furrowing his brow even in sleep. _He's over 1__8__,000 years old—of course he would have aged_, a practical part of me points out. _He's not even supposed to be alive_.

_Stop it!_ I quickly move to crush these thoughts before they can gain a foothold in my mind. I cannot let these thoughts have any sway. I must concentrate on bringing him back to life.

Tentatively, my hand shaking, I reach out to touch his fingers which lie atop the creamy infirmary blanket, protruding from the white plaster.

His nails, before jagged with ground-in dirt, have been cleaned and cut smooth. As I wrap my fingers around his, I can't help but notice how very cold they are. To be sure, wraith hands are not known for their warmth but his is like ice.

"Dr. Beckett…"

"I know, luv," he interrupts as he glances at the softly beeping monitors. "I just sent one of the nurses for an electric blanket tae help bring his temp up. He just doesnae have the energy tae spare on keeping himself warm."

I nod mutely and return to studying Gilleasbachan's face as the electric blanket arrives and is draped over his still form.

There is an oxygen mask over his face—the clear plastic clouds slightly with each shallow exhalation, then clears when he breathes in again. Slow, rhythmic…clouded….clear….clouded…clear…shallow breath, sallow skin…

"I gave him a light sedative—keep away the dreams," Carson murmurs in my ear. "From what I saw, I didna think dreams are a pleasant retreat from the lad right now."

Again, I nod mutely, entranced as I watch my brother. Except in strange, vague memory and dream, I have never seen another wraith. Except in my earliest infancy, I have never seen another member of my family in the flesh. I have grown up, was raised, have lived among humans—I cannot regret this or say that my human family failed merely by virtue of the fact that they are not wraith, not of my blood and yet...

But here, here is my brother, one of my own kind, my own kin. His skin, too pale, too bruised, too broken though it is, is like mine own. His eyes, clouded with pain and exhaustion, are like mine—catlike slits for pupils and sharper sight. His tattoos match mine—mathiar's star on our temple, athiar's three arrows on our right hands—but he also has his own on his design on his forehead, because he reached adulthood among our hive, our family. His mind is like mine own, reaching out for another's touch—I have often longed for that touch, which I must avoid; I have long had to hinder this instinct, hold it in check. Human minds are not designed, not accustomed to constant companionship.

Will I have to hinder it still? Has time spent alone with only the queen's mind taught him to fear and hate that touch, so intimate? Can I convince him again of its goodness, the comfort it can bring? Will he allow me to heal him in that way? _Can_ I heal him?

I gently squeeze Gilleasbachan's fingers, a promise to him and to myself that I WILL heal him, that I will find a way, even if it means traveling beyond this galaxy to find a healer with the knowledge.

And he squeezes back.

The movement is slight, barely perceptible, it could almost be an muscle twitch.

But I don't think so.

"Gilleasbachan?" I whisper, clumsily scrambling to my knees on the chair so I can better see his face.

"Mmmm…"

His soft moan is the confirmation I need to know that he is here, he is alive and he knows that I am here beside him. His eyelids flutter lazily and his chest expands haltingly, raspingly under the blanket—but there is none of the panic I expected, only a calm…haziness.

Carson must have given him the good stuff.

Slowly, he rolls his head on the pillow till his glazed, clouded gaze falls on me and his eyes try vainly to focus. "Mairghread?" he murmurs, his voice thick with sleep and muffled by the oxygen mask.

Tears prick my eyes and I grasp his hand all the more tightly. "Yes, yes! I'm here."

His eyes wander hazily. "Where…?"

"We are home, brother," I reach out to touch his face with my other hand. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Carson move around to the other side, pulling his stethoscope off his neck. "You're safe now."

He frowns, confused. "Home? Gone…"

The tears begin to run down my cheeks—he is home, he is safe but he cannot believe it, the only home he ever knew was destroyed, and even hazy from painkillers he knows it. Unobtrusively, Carson listens to my brother's heart and lungs, his brow furrowed with concern.

"No, Gilleasbachan, home is here, with me," I tuck a damp lock of hair behind his ear. "You can rest now. Heal."

"Mairghread, luv," Carson comes back around and speaks quietly in my ear. "I do nae know if tha's possible. He needs sustenance. If he cannae feed or eat like ye…"

"I will feed him," I whisper back, softly enough that I do not think Gilleasbachan can hear me.

"No!" his eyes clear for a moment, fear giving him clarity through the painkillers. I guess I underestimated his hearing, like John always underestimates mine. Interesting. "No, you don't have to…" he trails off, gasping for breath.

"Gilleasbachan, calm down please! Athair's serum, I took it, I can eat for us both," I try to assure him but he shakes his head, grasping at my hand frantically.

"No" gasp "no," he gasps. "I can" gasp "eat."

"Gilleasbachan, there are no aged, no criminals…"

"Not" gasp "humans" gasp "bread" gasp "Who" gasp "did you" gasp "think" gasp "tested" gasp "serum?" he collapses back onto the pillow, the monitors wailing about hyperventilation and low blood oxygen.

"Tha's enough!" Dr. Beckett barks sharply as he injects more sedative into the IV port. "He needs tae rest. An' so do ye, lass," he points me back to my bed. "Ye can stay in here, or go back tae yer quarters, but ye need food and rest. Doctor's orders."

"Come, Mairghread," Mum grasps my elbow and pulls me away, supporting most of my weight as she guides me back to my bed. I glance over my shoulder to see Gilleasbachan's eyes flutter shut once again and the monitors displace slowly normalize. "We'll get food in the mess hall and then return. Carson will take good care of him till then."

I nod, too stunned to speak. Gilleasbachan was given the serum? Is it possible that the unspoken fear in rescuing him was needless?

If only it were as easy to heal his spirit.

TBC

A/N: Thank you for all the reviews! Here's hoping I continue to please.


	17. Good News, Bad News

**Good News, Bad News**

* * *

Sitting with Mum in the mess hall, I can't help but feel somewhat, self-conscious. It's not just that I'm in a wheelchair, in stark white scrubs, my hands shaking when I move to eat some of the small mountain of food in front of me. It's that I know the jumper landed, probably even before in fact, the rumor mills of Atlantis began to grind. Another wraith. Another queen dead. Another "rescued" wraith. Not a baby wraith, an adult wraith. Once the nursing shift changes, it will only get worse.

"Mairghread."

I glance up from my study of the speckle patterns in the mica on the table top to see Mum staring at me intently.

"Mum?" I feign innocence.

"Eat."

"Yes, Mother," I draw out with a smile, viciously stabbing an innocent pot sticker with my fork, studying it a moment to determine its edibility before I actually put it in my mouth. I think this looks like the work of Ming—in other words, definitely edible and probably tasty.

"Ah, I thought I'd find ye here," Dr. Beckett sits down across from me and Mum, surreptitiously catching a Clementine as it rolls off the small mountain of food on my tray in accordance with the laws of gravity. "There's good news and bad news. The good news is that yer brother does still have the eating gene, although a slightly weaker presentation than yours."

He tries to replace the orange fruit on my tray only to have it promptly roll off for him to catch again.

"There was any doubt?" I demand sharply. "You thought he might be lying?"

Dr. Beckett holds up his hands, one still clutching the fruit, placatingly.

"Nay, nay, not at all, lass," he soothes. "We were just a mite bit afraid that all that feeding and unfeeding the queen did might have diminished the long term effectiveness of yer father's serum." Failing once again to replace the small citrus orb on the mountain, Dr. Beckett settles for placing it next to the tray.

"I'm sorry," I apologize, relaxing from an aggressive stance I didn't know I had taken. "I didn't mean to jump down your throat. So," I pause. "That's the good news—no more feeding worries. What's the bad news?"

I regret asking the question as soon as the words leave my mouth.

Carson sighs heavily and leans forward, resting his arms on the tabletop. "We cannae feed him normally. We've started him on intravenous feeding tae help build up his strength, but you know as well as I do—"

"It's not a perfect substitute," I finish. In humans, long term intravenous feeding can lead to liver failure and a whole host of other complications—it's just not a natural way to receive nutrients. But for a wraith it means that only 70-80 of its energy and nutrients can be used. The rest is sacrificed to correcting the damage caused by the feeding itself. "Why can't you feed him? If he's not strong enough, why not a feeding tube?"

Again, Dr. Beckett sighs, pulling a PDA out of his pocket and sliding it across the table explaining as I pick it up and activate the screen. "As ye can see, the scans revealed a great deal of damage tae his gastrointestinal tract. It looks like he was repeatedly stabbed and the wounds healed improperly."

A pit opens in my chest and my heart falls through when I see what the scans revealed to Dr. Beckett. It is both the beauty and the horror of the Lantean scanner—unlike x-rays or even MRIs, which are two-dimensional and so lose something of the actual state of the being's interior that they represent, the images from the scanner though on a two-dimensional screen show a person in three and somehow can show its parts wind backwards and forwards in the body.

It does not take long for me to realize what Dr. Beckett knew, why Gilleasbachan couldn't eat. Instead of forming one, long tube, his stomach and intestines turn, connect at odd places, double back on themselves, a maze of smooth muscle daring any food it traps to ever find its way through.

I push the device back to Carson and begin peeling the errant clementine with trembling fingers just because I need something to do with my hands.

"So," I begin to section the poor fruit, making sure my voice sounds far more calm and steady than I feel. "What now? Where do we go from here?"If I were strong enough, I could perhaps try to heal him, but to rearrange incorrectly healed…

"Don't even think about it, luv," Dr. Beckett seems to read my thoughts. "No, as soon as he's strong enough from the feeding, we'll do surgery."

My heart disappears altogether in the pit. There is no concept of surgery among the wraith. Among queens, the closest they come is dissection, usually on live victims. I fear that this is one of the reasons that his internal organs have healed so badly. How can I explain to Gilleasbachan this alien concept of cutting a person open in order to heal them?

"How soon?" I swallow the lump in my throat, chasing it down to the pit of my stomach with if section of clementine.

"He should strong enough in about 8 hours, but we probably wont start surgery till tomorrow morning."

Over 20 hours. Time enough I hope to explain what will happen. But…

"Why the delay?"

"Well," Carson steals a section of my clementine, "Extra strength can't hurt but really, Dr. Biro and I only you want to open the thoracic cavity once, and there's a lot of damage that needs to be repaired—we want to have a good plan before we go in."

I nod, feeling myself slip into a state of shock. My brother is here, but terribly hurt. He's growing stronger, but I know the unspoken words of Dr. Beckett which hanging over us, that Gilleasbachan might die on the table.

"Hey, why aren't you in the infirmary?" Dad taps me on the shoulder as he sits down next to me, once again dressed in his brown linen and leather.

"Why aren't you?" I counter. "You were nearly drowned and Mum did give you a nasty knock."

"Don't need to," he answers shortly, popping a chicken nugget from his tray into his mouth. "You, on the other hand…"

"I'm _fine_," I tell him, flashing what I hope is a convincing smile. "Once I finish this mountain of food, I'll be better fed than when I set out yesterday morning."

"Aye, well," Dr. Beckett stands up. "Be that as it may, I want ye back in the infirmary when ye're done."

I give him an exaggerated, exasperated sigh. "_Fine_," I glance at my scrubs distastefully. " But can I go back to my quarters first, change into some real clothes?" I give my best try for the "sad puppy dog look" which seems to get John anything he wants, but I'm told that in my case, the blue skin and cat-like eyes works rather against it.

Carson smiles indulgently, as if willing to excuse my slight rudeness on the difficulty of the past 40 hours.

"Aye, but don't dawdle," he cautions in mock severety.

"Of course," I give a sweet smile (which I am told is somewhat ruined by my not-so-round teeth. They are not serated like the queens, just a little sharper with slightly large canines. Come to think of it, most 'cute' human expressions fail miserably for me. Perhaps I would be better off sticking with 'mysterious and Mona Lisa-esque enigmatic')

"In the mean time, why don't ye take yer lunch out tae the balcony?" Carson suggests as he rises to leave. " 'Tis a lovely day, and ye could use the sun."

"I believe that is an excellent idea," Mum rises, picking up my tray. "A bit of sunlight would be beneficial to us all."

No one objects—we all feel it, the need for fresh air and sunlight after hours on the platform. Dad gathers up his own heaped tray as Carson negotiates my wheelchair through the crowded mess hall out to the nearest balcony.

It is getting into late fall for the Lantean planet. The prevailing winds are from the north-west, bringing cool, damp air with the first taste of winter on them. The sunlight is golden and clear, still warming the stone balcony despite the winds. The sky is beautifully blue and cloudless and I am comforted simply because it is there. In a day of discoveries and trials and horrors, something familiar and easy and lovely.

"Don't be too long now," Dr. Beckett reminds me before his face softens and he squeezes my shoulder gently. "Do nae worry, luv. He'll be alright. Ye'll see."

"Thank you, Carson," I squeeze his hand back, before once again addressing myself to the mountain of food which Mum places net to me on a small table.

"Hey Mairghread, eat," Dad commands me as he sets down his own tray on the balcony ledge and leans himself against it to continue his meal.

"Or else?" I prod, feeling the need to have some fun and lightness in this dark and heavy day. Days. It was yesterday that this all started. It has been a very long two days.

"Or else I'll make you do a training session with the new marines," he offers me his 'patented' feral grin.

"No! No!" I cry out dramatically and throw one of the stranger fruits on my tray at his head. Dad, of course, catches it deftly and bites through the thick skin and into the juicy flesh. "Not green marines!"

"Yes!" he growls and runs at me, scooping me out of the wheelchair and spinning me around till he has me over the railing, prevented from falling only by the grace of his strong arms.

"Wanna go for a swim?" Dad asks me, a playful look in his eye.

"Ronon, put her down. She needs to eat," Mum intercedes, but we're having too much fun to listen to the voice of reason.

"No! No! put me down!" I giggle like a little girl, trying to reach him and tickle him so he'll let me go. There's only one spot…

"Put you down? Okay," he tosses me lightly into the air before catching me again. I scream and laugh and hit his arms ineffectively.

"No, put me on the balcony, ya great lump!" I demand through my uncontrollable laughter.

Dad sighs dramatically before laying me down on the balcony like a rug. "Fine." He says defeatedly before he starts tickling me mercilessly.

"No! No! hehehe No! Stop! Stop it!" I shriek breathlessly, futilely reaching for where his jaw meets his neck—his one ticklish spot.

"Oh no you don't," he growls, pushing my hands away and rearing back while continuing to tickle me. Damn his long arms!

"Enough!" Mum steps in, more or less pulling Dad off me. I can't stop giggling though, even as I push myself up on my elbows and then sit cross legged.

It feels so good. Laughing, playing, forgetting obligations, worries, half-finished projects and finished failures. Just relaxing, simply _being_ with family.

How long has it been since Gilleasbachan was able to do this? To laugh? To play? To be care-free for even a moment? To have fun?

Over ten thousand years.

Will he ever be able to? Will he ever be healed enough to stop outside? To have a tickle fight? Physically, maybe. Psychologically? Spiritually?

"Mairghread?"

Mum's voice cuts through my thoughts and I shake myself.

"Hmm? Sorry, just thinking," I pick myself off the balcony and grab a banana off Dad's tray. "Um, I'm gonna head back to my room and change before I go back to be with Gilleasbachan."

"You should eat more," Mum tells me, gesturing to my still full tray. I sigh and pick it up to take with me, despite the fact that I feel fine and my stomach is fit to burst.

"Fine," I acquiesce, but feel I have to add, "But I'm really alright now. I don't need to eat more."

Mum gives me a look that is at once disbelieving and says "humor me". Dad seems to wonder where he went wrong—_always_ take food when its offered. Dad has never quite got over the years of near starvation as a runner, the times of feast(rare) and famine(common).

Back in my room, I set the tray on my desk before I head into my bathroom to take a shower. I strip off the scrubs, folding them neatly to return to the infirmary. I know there's no real need to fold them—they'll just be dumped in the laundry to be bleached—but some habits are hard to break.

I take a quick shower, nothing like my dermis-scalding shower on the station, just enough soap and water to wash off the stickiness from the EKG pads and IV tape and the thin layer that the infirmary seems to deposit on all its visitors.

I step out, dripping wet, realizing I left my towel on the rack across the room. However, I get caught by the image of my own reflection in the mirror. I turn slowly to study myself, a sudden fascination with my body now that I have seen another wraith body in the flesh.

Pale blue-green skin, smooth, nearly flawless except for countless needle scars on my arm, and the jagged, pearlescent scar which snakes across my left breast and my sternum, the reminder of the marine who thought that no wraith deserved to live, innocent or not. Soft curves from neck to ankles, slender but not thin. Hip-length, raven-black hair which seems to shimmer with blues and greens in the sunlight. Large, almondish, green, cat-pupilled eyes set above high cheek bones and slight facial slits, my mother's six-pointed star tattoo on my temple, akin to the asterix symbol on earth computers.

My brothers skin is covered with pearlescent scars and raw, open wounds. He is angular, bony, starved. Too thin, skeletal. Roughly shorn hair, black like mine except for the silvering temples. Eyes like mine, but tired, so tired.

I towel off quickly, dressing in a soft white shirt and a rosy pink dress. My limbs are stiff, so it takes longer than usual to do up the lacing in the back but I am determined that Gilleasbachan should never have to see anyone like the queen again. I must to my best to be the antithesis to her—dress in soft, bright colors. I comb out my hair, but other than to pull back some of it out of my face with a barrette, I don't really bother with it, now I need to be with my brother.

I need to go past the Control Room to get to the Infirmary from my quarters, and as I pass, I can't help but over hear a loud commotion—it sounds like Dr. Weir is yelling at someone. There was a scheduled check in, today, I seem to remember, but what on earth, literally, is getting her so upset?

Curiosity has always been one of my faults or virtues, depending on who you ask, so I peek my head through one of the more distant doors.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Weir, but the IOA's decision is final," General Landry is telling her over the screen.

"They can't just decide that they don't like me anymore!" Dr. Weir is angrier than I have ever seen her—her face is red and she seems to be on the verge of screaming. "Why are they doing this?!"

"Elizabeth," the General looks tired and very much like he would rather not be doing this today, "Do you really want to discuss this here?"

"Yes, yes I do," she snaps back, just barely maintaining her composure. "What reasons do they give?"

"Mairghread."

I jump to see Kate Heightmeyer standing behind me, a look of…regret?...on her face.

"Come on," she whispers, gently pulling me away towards the infirmary. "You don't want to see this."

We walk down the hall for a bit before I have the courage to ask, "What's happening?"

Kate sighs. Everyone seems to be sighing today. "The IOA is recalling Dr. Weir to earth. They have some…concerns."

I want to pry deeper, but I don't think I would get very far. I'm better off listening to the kitchen and laundry room talk for information. People forget that my hearing is many times better than theirs is. Instead I ask a more pressing and troubling question. "Who will replace her?"

"I'm not sure. I'm sure that we will be told as soon as it's finalized," she replies, somewhat evasively. I sense that she had something to do with Dr. Weir's recall. Everyone has noticed how…jumpy Dr. Weir has become, easily antagonized. Kate must have noticed it even more when Dr. Weir let down her guard in her mandatory sessions. Abruptly, she changes topics. "So, can you tell me anything about your brother? Dr. Beckett called me for a preliminary psych eval. He said that your brother had been a queen's slave for 10,000 years?"

"Or more," I reply bitterly. "Time as measured in years becomes slightly pointless after a certain point."

"I suppose it would," she agrees sadly, guiding me out onto a balcony. "Dr. Beckett said your brother's name was Gilleasbachan, right?" She stumbles slightly over the strange name and grimaces faintly. "Did I pronounce that correctly? I admit between Dr. Beckett's accent and the radio static I couldn't be sure."

"You pronounced it fine," I affirm. "But you can call him 'Gil'—the rest of family often did."

She smiles encouragingly as we walk over to stand by the railing. "That's very good to know. A large part of your brother's healing will be making him feel safe and at home here with you. His time with the queen will probably have shattered his sense of safety and possibly his sense of trust for anyone. We're all going to have to help him see that there is life that can still be lived," she tells me. "Anything you can remember him liking before his capture? Any games, a kind of food, a particular smell or type of music? Anything he might associate with home and safety?"

I close my eyes, delving into the memories of my father and myself for such things. Images of games played with light balls tossed back and forth or kicked around; games played with rolling hoops, courts drawn in the dust; games of chase played out in the water.

"Water games," I say, my eyes still closed to hold onto the memories of the hive. "Um, similar to your game of 'Marco Polo'."

"Good," I hear her jot it down on her tab let. "That should play beautifully into his physical therapy as well. What about food? Smells?"

Meals prepared by Mathair or by the whole hive-roasted vegetables, flat breads baked on stones by an open hearth, thick meat stews, honey-sweetened cakes…

"Um, home-y food. Stews. Roasted things." A memory pushes itself to the forefront and I smile. "Anything sweet. Mathair said every tooth in his head was a sweet tooth."

I open my eyes and Kate smiles encouragingly at me before she jots it down.

"That's something. That's very helpful," she assures me. "And with so many sweet-junkies on Atlantis, I'm sure we can find something your brother likes without too much trouble." She puts her tablet away. "Mairghread, you know that I'm here for you too. If you need someone to talk to, my door is always open, anytime of the day or night."

"I know," I reply simply, staring out to sea. "Thank you."

A Heavy silence falls between us. The wind blows cold across my face, making the damp spots on my clothes left by my wet hair feel like ice and I shiver.

I can only hope and pray to whoever and whatever will listen that the mind healer I am willing to search the universe for resides down the hall from me.

TBC

A/N: thank you for your patience and reviews! This chapter is somewhat longer, and more developments are on the horizon. And yes, Dr. Weir is going. To anyone who would have liked to see her stay, I'm sorry. As to who will replace her, stay tuned! Sorry this is not an action-y chapter, but the characters simply demanded a short playtime. Please let me know what you think!


	18. My Brother's Keeper, My Brother's Judas

**My Brother's Keeper, My Brother's Judas**

* * *

When Kate and I reach the infirmary, the lights in the isolation room have been dimmed to a soft twilight. At first, I think that Gilleasbachan must be sleeping, but when I approach, thinking to make sure he is not suffering any nightmare despite Carson's drugs, his eyes open. The drugs must be wearing off, for there is no longer the glassy, hazy apathetic look in his eyes, but the fright is creeping back in, heralding the return of memories. 

"Mairghread," he whimpers through cracked lips and the oxygen mask.

"I'm still here, Gil," I speak softly, all too well aware that he probably has a fierce headache. "I just needed to get changed."

His hand, trapped by the weight of the cast, tries futilely to reach out and touch the fabric of my dress. I oblige by perching on the edge of the bed and putting my skirt fabric within his grasp. His fingers brush the silky material as though he were afraid it would disappear at his touch.

"Mathair used to wear dresses like this," he mumbles, his voice choked with the tears which run down his face. He continues to stroke the dusky pink cloth, twisting it in his fingers, holding onto it like it is the only thing that is keeping him here. "She loved rose. And green." He pauses, a haunted look in his eyes. "Never black. Never black."

The queen. "No, no, don't think about that, Gil," I whisper, leaning in close that I fill his vision. "You're here, with me. It's going to be all right. I promise."

"I can _see her_," he whispers back, terror sending his voice high. "She won't let me leave. She told me she'd never let me leave."

"Gil, she's dead. I killed her. We burned the body, scattered her ashes over the wide sea," I try to reassure him. "She can't come back. She can't hurt you."

The faintest glimmer of hope, barely a spark enough to light tinder on fire, shines in his eyes. "Promise?"

"Yes, I promise," I tell him, reaching out to touch his face. He flinches, but then relaxes, almost nuzzling into my palm. A comfortable silence falls between us for a moment, and then I have to ask, "Are you feeling any better?"

He leans back into the pillow, his hand still kneading my skirt. "A little." He nods towards the many bags hanging from his IV pole. "Dr. Beckett says this is food. He says I can't eat." He frowns. "Why can't I eat?"

Oh, damn. The subject I had hoped to avoid and knew I had to address has been broached.

"Gil, the queen…damaged your stomach. Dr. Beckett has to fix it before you can eat," I try to explain without any detail, but Gilleasbachan is having none of it. Kate hovers in the background, not intruding, but ready to jump in if things go badly.

"How damaged?" his voice has an edge to it—anger? Fear? I can't be sure.

I turn to Dr. Heightmeyer. "Can I borrow your tablet for a moment?"

"Certainly," she turns it on and hands it to me. For the moment, Gil ignores this new person in the room, instead focusing on me. I take the stylus and draw two figures in the drawing program. One, a simplified version of what the insides of a person _should_ look like. The other, a simplified version of what _his_ insides look like. "Gil, this is what a stomach should look like." I point to the first drawing. "This is what your stomach looks like." I point sadly to the second.

A look of mingled comprehension of horror and incomprehension of reality dances over his face.

Kate chooses this moment to jump in--distractions can be wonderful things.

"Gilleasbachan? Hi, I'm Dr. Kate Heightmeyer, the base's psychiatrist," she introduces herself as she stands on the otherside of the bed. Gilleasbachan looks at her with a mix of confusion and distrust.

"Psychiatrist?" he repeats the unfamiliar word slowly, his brow furrowed.

"Yes, um, I'm a doctor for the mind, like Dr. Beckett is a doctor for the body," she tries to explain, only relieving my brother's distress somewhat. "I know that you must be feeling confused and frightened, but I'm here to help you."

"How?"

"Well," Kate begins before looking around, realizing that this is going to take a while, and spots a stool. "May I sit?" Gil nods slowly, not quite sure what to make of this strange woman claiming to be a healer for the mind. "First of all, I'm here to listen. Anything you need to get off your chest—"

"Off my chest?" my poor brother is terribly confused at this point. What, to his mind, would he have to get off his chest but the blankets and his shirt?

Kate seems to realize her colloquial language will not help here. "Anything that's troubling you—if something scares you, worries you, hurts, it's my job to listen and try to help make it better. And then, I can prescribe medications to help, different kinds of therapy—"

"And these…therapies…medicines…they will get rid of the memories?" Gilleasbachan asks, unsure how he is supposed to react.

A look of regret comes over Kate's face. "No. I'm afraid not. But they will make the memories easy to deal with, so you can live a full and happy life."

Gilleasbachan closes his eyes, tears squeezing out between his closed eyelids. I do not need a mental connection to know what he is thinking—nothing will let him live if the memories are still there.

Kate may provide a stopgap, but I need to find someone to help me with the wraithian way of helping torture victims.

Kate continues to talk for a few more minutes, but I admit I stopped listening—her means may be effective for humans, but they never had to address someone whose torture included being killed and brought back to life for thousands of years.

Eventually she leaves me alone once again with my brother.

"Gil, I—" once again I try to broach the topic and try to explain the surgery to him, but I am fortunately saved by Dr. Beckett's entrance.

"Ah, Gilleasbachan, ye're awake. I take it ye've met Dr. Heightmeyer?" he claims the stool Kate just recently vacated. He offers a warm and friendly smile to my wary brother. "That's good then. So, how're ye feeling? Any better?"

"It's easier to breathe," Gil responds slowly. Damn that queen—even when he's perfectly safe, he can't get it out of his head that he has to be on his guard, all because of that damned queen!

"Good, good," Dr. Beckett smiles encouragingly, beaming as though breathing easier were a huge accomplishment. He notes it down in my brother's chart. "What about the pain then? Do ye need something for it?"

Suddenly, Gilleasbachan freezes—in his eyes I can see that he has been transported back to the hiveship, back to some room with the sadistic queen. The heart monitor starts beeping rapidly—I reach out, taking his face in my hands once again, gently touching my forehead to his, linking minds with him in the hopes of bringing him out.

_A misty space, like I meet my father in, but this space is dark, confining. There is no comfort here. _

_"Gilleasbachan!" I call out, trying to draw himself out. I myself seem to bring the only source of light to this place—I exude a soft, moonlight radiance. Why, I can't even begin to imagine._

_"Mairghread?!" he cries back to me and I try to follow the sound of his voice. "Stay away!"_

_I slow my pace, but do not stop. "Why, Gil? Why should I stop? I'm only trying to help—you don't need to be afraid anymore."_

_"No, you shouldn't be here!" his voice is louder now, and tinged with panic._

_"No, she shouldn't," a seductive, specterly voice purrs. "You're mine!"_

_ I break in at last, my poor brother tied in his own mind, his arms bound behind his back and pulled up to an invisible ceiling. The __queen stands before him, ghostly and immaterial to my eyes, but to Gilleasbachan, who must have had the queen constantly invading his mind, I imagine she is as solid as I am. _

_"No," I march up to the ghost and stare her in the face. "You are dead. I killed you. Be gone!"_

_She hisses at me, shrieking, "Never! He is mine!"_

_"Nothing is yours now—you are a pile of dust!" I shout back before walking right through her to Gilleasbachan. I reach behind him and pull the ropes loose—they turn to scraps of hemp in my hand. I catch him as he falls, gently lowering him to the floor. "Oh, Gilleasbachan, these things are dead and gone—forget them!" I whisper to him as he stares up at me in shock. "Come back with me." He shakes his head, afraid—this was his world, without it, he is lost. "Come. There is life yet to be lived, my brother.__"_

_Gently, I draw him into my own mind__, which although not pristine is far brighter than his mind. __I let him rest a few moments, but realize that Dr. Beckett must be growing concerned._

_"Gil?" he looks up at me, startled but no longer with fear in his eyes. "Are you ready to go back? Dr. Beckett just wanted to know if you wanted something to dull the pain."_

_He nods and we slip back into the physical world._

Where there are alarms and people running around like mad.

"STOP!" I shout, fearful that such commotion will scare Gilleasbachan all over again. "BE QUIET!" I growl loudly—once again, there are great advantages to having a wraithian voice—when I shout, people listen.

"Ah, lass, ye gave us quiet a scare," Carson shoos the nurses out and silences the alarms when he sees that everything is relatively alright. "Is everything alright?"

"Bad memories," I whisper back, remembering afterward that it's futile to whisper in the presence of a wraith—we can always hear you.

"Ah," Carson nods. "I understand." He turns back to Gilleasbachan, who is looking somewhat—what's the earth term? Shell-shocked?—his eyes are flitting all over the infirmary. "So, did ye want something for the pain? There's no need tae be uncomfortable."

Gil jerks like he received a shock, studying Dr. Beckett for a moment as though he's trying to remember if he can trust this man with the strange accent before whispering, shyly, "Yes, please."

Carson smiles and lays a hand on my brother's shoulder in a gesture of comfort. "Finally," he jokes to me, "A patient willing to admit to pain!" before grabbing a syringe from the cabinet on the wall and slowly injecting it into the IV port. "There," he unlocks the syringe and tosses it in the biohazard bin. "That should at least take off the edge." He sits on the stool again, his hands on his knees, watching for the signs that the painkillers have started to work their magic before he broaches the topic I'm so afraid of. But there's no way around it—it can't wait for his psychological healing, and just doing the surgery without telling him would be even worse.

"Gilleasbachan, I think yer sister already told ye about the state of yer intestines," he begins, his voice gentle even if his words are hard. "But I don't think she told ye how we're going to fix them."

My poor, poor brother, he is so confused, so tired, so worn, so afraid. "What?"

"Gil," I whisper, squeezing his hand in a sign of reassurance, "Dr. Beckett is going to have to operate tomorrow."

"Operate?" the word is foreign, unknown. If only he never had to know it.

"Aye, operate," Dr. Beckett seems to be at a loss—how do you explain surgery to someone who has never heard of such a thing? "Dr. Biro and I will go in, put things back the way they're supposed to be."

Good. Simple, doesn't really explain the details…

"Go in?" Gilleasbachan's trembles slightly—damn it, he understood the meaning of Carson's words. "Cut me open? No. NO! Mairghread, you promised! You promised!" he sobs hysterically, his hand wringing my dress.

"Gilleasbachan, please, calm down! I promised you no one would hurt you anymore! No one will! You won't even know Dr. Beckett did anything—by the time you wake up, it will be over—no pain, I swear!" I try to reassure him, but he is past the point of hearing. Monitor's squawk and Carson quickly injects a sedative into the IV. Eyelids slide over glassy, terrified eyes—eyes accusing me of hurt and betrayal.

For once, I wish I did not know so much earth culture, for an all too concise descriptor comes to mind, worse than the words "traitor" or "betrayer"—_Judas_. In being my brother's keeper, I am my brother's Judas.

TBC

A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed! As you can see, reviews make me write more quickly, **so please let me know how you liked it**! More soon, I promise--I have a few days holiday, so I should have plenty of time to obey my muse.


	19. Take Me to Your Leader

**Take Me to Your Leader**

* * *

** A/N:**Thanks to PKBitchGirl1 for the suggestion of who should replace Weir. A very logical choice for who should step up into the civilian leader position. Taph leat!

* * *

"Well, that could have gone better," Carson comments with a sigh. "But it also could have been worse." He studies my brother's form, tense even deep in drugged sleep. "I think it might be best if he not come 'round till after the surgery. The less stress on his system, the better."

"Agreed." I reply almost without thinking—at this point, I'm so numbed and so filled with remorse for what I have to do to my brother that I'd agree to almost anything Dr. Beckett suggests. The weight around my heart has suddenly grown intolerably heavy, threatening to crush my heart all together. "Maybe being able to eat will help him forget." Will mud wash away blood?

"Aye," Carson sticks his hands in his pockets and rocks back and forth, heels to toes, toes to heels, before a crackling earpiece snaps him out of his reverie.

"Aye, Beckett here…What? That's—she didnae even have time tae pack! Ugh, bloody bureaucratic bastards…Aye, aye, we'll be right there." He cuts off the radio and mutters a long string of what I am sure is unrepeatable Scots curses. "They want us in th' gate room. New civilian leader's due in a few minutes."

"What? But, Dr. Weir just received news of her recall," my mind is having difficulty working through this. As if this week needed more complications, a new leader.

Dr. Beckett calls one of his more veteran nurses, Maria, in to watch Gilleasbachan while we're gone—paper work, as it has often been pointed out, can be done anywhere—and throws his hands in the air as we walk, his accent getting thicker as his frustration grows. "Ah ken. But nobody speart me. Seems a reit glaikit hin' tae dae, but whit dae ye expect frae a boorichie ay pudden-headed pencil-pushers?"

I'm usually very good at knowing what he is saying, but it takes me a few seconds to translate his highland slang. I wonder what the new leader will make of his 'dialect'.

The gateroom is packed with civilian and military personnel. There is a general air of discontentment and barely suppressed mutiny in the air. The soldiers are all in dress uniform, and the scientists have done their best to not look like they've been up all night with an experiment.

The stargate begins to dial in and Chuck announces, "Scheduled off-world activation!"

Really, does he have to say that every time? Of course it's an off-world activation! We would notice if someone were dialing from our DHD.

The forming wormhole 'whooshes' dramatically before settling back into the shimmer event horizon.

"Attennnnn-tion!" Sheppard barks out and every military person in the room immediately snaps to attention seconds before a man and a woman I have never seen before step through the event horizon, followed by someone I recognize.

"Grandpa O'Neill!" I almost call out, but manage to subdue it to a kind of quiet whisper. Next to me, Carson smiles and squeezes my shoulder gently. I think sometimes, they miss the little girl that I was.

John steps forward, still at attention. "Dr. Jackson, sir. Welcome to Atlantis," his voice is tightly controlled—I'm sure he was not pleased with Dr. Weir's departure either.

Dr. Jackson was looking around, a look of undisguised wonder on his face before John calls him back to the ground. "What? Oh, yes, yes, thank you. Look, um, you don't have to, um, stand at attention, um, I'm an archaeologist, not a general." He points distractedly over his shoulder. "He's the general, and, uh, he never stood much on ceremony."

"Nope!" O'Neill beams, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, looking like an excited and mischievous child. "Seriously, colonel, at ease. All of ya! At ease!"

Marines and air force personnel shift to the relaxed at ease position to watch the unfolding drama.

"Hmm. You know, I still think that those Ancients didn't have much of a sense of style," the woman comments as she looks around somewhat disdainfully. "Really, you need a little…softness in a place. Don't get me wrong, crystal's pretty and all, but it's so…cold." She shivers for emphasis.

"Vala," John says with a smirk. "Nice to see you again, too."

She smiles charmingly at him, but the smile doesn't reach her eyes. "You too colonel."

Dr. Jackson breaks in again, "Yes, look, I'm sorry we couldn't meet again under more…auspicious circumstances but, uh, I want you to know that I know that I have some very big shoes to fill," His face scrunches as he speaks, almost as quickly as Rodney when he has an idea. "And I know that I can't gain your confidence immediately. But, I, uh, hope that we can at least, um, get along until then."

"Of course, Dr. Jackson," John replies automatically. "Care to dismiss them? They do have work to do."

"What? Oh, yes, yes, of course, by all means. Sorry," he says more loudly to the room at large. "Didn't mean to interrupt you. I mean, I'm gonna be here a while, and diner's probably a better place to get to know you anyway. Um, Dismissed!" he tries to imitate the military style, but doesn't quite have the brusque manner required.

"Daniel," O'Neill sounds like he's lecturing a two-year old. "Head personnel? Maybe you want to meet with them, huh?

"Oh, of course, I'm sorry, Colonel Sheppard, uh, Dr. McKay, Dr. Beckett?" he turns to address them, since they had conveniently stayed behind. "Meet in the, uh, um," he snaps his fingers, looking for the right word, "conference room? 10 minutes?"

"Sure," Sheppard smiles stiffly. "Ten minutes. You need some help with that luggage?" he gestures at the crates which must have followed them through without my noticing.

Dr. Jackson turns around, as though he just remembered that he _had_ luggage and mumbles, "Oh, yes, that'd be great, thanks."

_This_ is the man they sent to replace Dr. Weir? This absent-minded, bumbling man who can't remember that he brought clothes to a new galaxy?

"Hey, Mary!" O'Neill notices me for the first time and opens his arms for a hug. I can't resist and I run to embrace him. "Hey, when did you get so tall? I'd swear you weren't this tall last time I was here."

I kiss his cheek lightly and laugh. "I grew another inch or so last month. My last growth spurt, we think."

"Well, in that case, let me get a good look atcha," he holds me out at arm's length. "Well, if you ain't the prettiest alien ever taken in by earthlings, I don't know who is," he flatters me. "How ya doin' kid?"

"Good," I reply automatically, but he's not buying it.

"So, how are you _really_ doing?" he asks more seriously. "I hear they found your brother in the hands of a wraith queen."

"I am…" my voice trails off. What I am? Savior, keeper, traitor, torturer, happy, sad, tormented, rejoicing, furious, hurt, healing…

"Hey, hey, it's okay," he seems to understand my distress and pulls me back into the hug as tears begin to overflow my eyes. "S'okay. S'okay, Mary, it'll be okay, you'll see."

"Is it?" I ask bitterly, sobs making my voice harsh and rough. "Do you have any idea what she did to him? What he's been through?"

"No," he admits as he begins to slowly rub soothing circles on my back. "But I know you. Any one's whose related to you can pull through anything. Besides, you'll help him."

I wish I could believe him.

TBC

A/N: 86 reviews! Wow! Thank you all so much. Please keep them coming, and I'll keep the chapters coming. Deal? Especially now, let me know what you think!


	20. Debriefing

**Debriefing**

* * *

Soon after his meeting with the heads of staff, of course Dr. Jackson wants to talk to the resident wraith. Namely, me.

I had gone back to the infirmary to sit by my brother's bedside. Whenever one of my human family here is sick, a constant bedside vigil is held, often in shifts, other times driving the nursing staff crazy by taking up space in chairs and beds around the afflicted.

The medical staff is not amused by the extremes of camaraderie when exhibited at 3 am.

He's been placed in what Dr. Beckett calls a "medically induced coma". He's been intubated to make sure his airway doesn't collapse. An Electroencephalograph machine has also been hooked up, for reasons I don't understand, so multicolored wires now run in and out of his hair.

So many wires. So many tubes. So much inorganic paraphernalia to keep him alive.

I walk into what used to be Dr. Weir's office—her things are gone, but in their places are even more artifacts and boxes of books and papers. It's as if in the lack of her cold presence, her things decided to go forth and multiply.

Dr. Daniel Jackson (that is his name according to the nurses) is rummaging through one of the boxes when I come in. The woman (Vala?) and Grandpa seem to be playing poker across the desk. Grandpa notices me first and waves me in.

"Ah, Mary! I see you have come to meet the illustrious Dr. Daniel Jackson! Speaker of 23 and counting languages, diplomat extraordinaire," he pauses and looks at the archaeologist. "Did I miss anything?"

"Uh, yes, the part where you volunteered me to be the leader of the Atlantis expedition," he replies and sneezes as he pulls two rather large and dusty tomes from one of the boxes.

"Aw, cummon Daniel! You were _begging_ me to let you out here!" retorts O'Neill as he tosses down his cards. "Full house! Beat that!"

Vala smiles, catlike, and slowly lays down her hand. "Royal Flush."

"I told you not to play cards with her," Jackson mutters as he puts the books on a shelf. "She was a professional con for years."

"Daniel, where are your manners?" reprimands O'Neill, gesturing to me. "Introduce yourself to the lady."

"Oh, yes, yes," he turns around, extending his hand only to freeze when he actually sees me. "Oh." He shakes himself and begins to offer his hand again. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean t-to be rude. Um, I'm Daniel Jackson. Um, Daniel," he says quickly while shaking my hand. I glance at the desk and see three coffee carafes and a half-empty mug. How much coffee has this man had?

"I am called Mairghread," I introduce myself, although I'm sure he already knows who I am. "But Mary is also acceptable."

"Ah, a, a simplified form for those who have trouble with the long version. It sounds vaguely like, um, Scots-Gaelic, from earth—" he begins to babble, retrieving his hand and reaching for the coffee mug.

"Yes, Daniel," O'Neill says patiently as he deals out a new hand. "That would be why the good Dr. Beckett can so easily converse with her."

"Of course, of course. Oh, I'm sorry," he gestures to the remaining chairs. "Please, sit, sit. Um, coffee?" he begins searching, I assume, for another mug.

"No thank you," I say tersely before allowing myself a small smile. "Dr. McKay could tell you that coffee and I don't mix well."

"Oh." He blinks rapidly, as though trying to mesh this information into that which he must have been given about the wraith in general. "Is that a wraith thing, or just you? Do you know? I wonder—"

"Daniel, shut it," O'Neill and Vala say simultaneously.

"Just play nice for now, anthropologist later."

"Right." Definitely too much coffee. "Um, so Mairghread, first off I'd really like to talk with you, get to know you a little better but, um, I suppose the more pressing matter is that of, of your brother," he refers to a sheet of paper. "Gilleasbachan." Not bad—pronounced it correctly on the first try. "Uh, Colonel Sheppard explained that he, your brother, that is, was held as a slave by a wraith queen and was, um, trapped with her for over 10,000 years?"

"Yes sir," I reply curtly.

"Geez, Daniel, where's your tact?" O'Neill stands up and takes the mug out of the archaeologist's hands. "No more coffee for you, mister."

"Jack!" he protests, grabbing at for his confiscated mug. "Give it back! Jack!"

"No. No!" he emphasizes as Daniel reaches for the carafes and blocks him with his body. "Get out. Mairghread, maybe you could take him for a walk on the balconies? Try to get some of that caffeine out of his system."

"Jack!" the protest is almost a whine.

"Uh-un. No more coffee for you! Seriously, one of these days I'm gonna find you dead from caffeine poisoning."

"But Jaaack…"

"No buts! Mairghread, get him out of here. I'm sure there's someone who needs this coffee more than you, Danny-boy," O'Neill says, shooing both me and Dr. Jackson out of the office and onto a balcony, employing his gene to lock us out.

"Jack!" Daniel shouts in protest one last time before resigning himself to his coffee-less fate, turning around and offering me a friendly, if someone nervous and forced smile. "So…" he tries to begin again. "Look, I'm sorry, I'm being kinda—"

"Hyper?" I proffer the term I have heard John and Rodney throw at each other when they act like this.

"Yes," he draws it out, as if considering its applicability and, having deemed it appropriate, continues, "Yes, I-I guess hyper is a good term. It's just…it's the city of the _Ancients_—"

"The Lanteans?"

"Oh, yes yes, of course, the Lanteans," he babbles and we begin to walk around the tower. "And, I mean, there's a whole new _galaxy_ to explore. I'm not actually sure why they thought I could replace Dr. Weir," he seems to be musing, despite the fact that he is speaking absurdly fast, like Rodney with a new idea how to get more energy. "Granted, I know more languages and I'm a linguist so I pick them up easier, but she has—well, no, she's done earth negotiations, not as many alien negotiations as I have, not be arrogant or anything, but she did have a longer career of it and I don't really have any leadership experience, but neither did she and I'm a little more familiar with the military and addressing culture conflict." He pauses his monologue. "Still…" he seems to recollect himself. "I-I'm sorry. Here I wanted to get to know you better—I mean I've seen your file, but just a quick read through, nothing detailed—and I've been going on about myself."

"What would you like to know?" I ask brusquely, although I can feel myself softening to this Daniel Jackson. For one thing, the way he's acting makes me think, in a mild way, of what happened when Rodney gave me coffee one day—it took forever for me to 'come down from the ceiling'. For another, he may be distracted but it doesn't seem so much an off-hand way of dealing with things as it is he's trying to take in everything at once and consider it deeply—his brain, mouth and curiosity can't keep up with each other. Rather like Radek, who has trouble keeping to English when he makes a discovery.

"Well, um, how old are you? Why don't we start with that?" He slows down, hands in his pockets, his shoulders tensing and relaxing as though some part of him always had to be in motion. Definitely too much coffee.

I stop in front of him, cross my arms, realize that it's a rather aggressive stance, and uncross them to clasp my hands, but feel very exposed and so settle for hugging myself.

"Chronologically? About 10,800. Physically? Maybe 100? Somewhere between 60 and 100?" I answer tentatively. It's almost impossible to say for sure. Give me 200 years and I could let you know with more accuracy. But, oh, you'd be dead. Damn the short human lifespan. I'll live on, and Mum and Dad and John and Carson and Rodney and you will all be dead.

"10,800? Really? Wow. I remember reading something about how you had, uh, had been put in a-a stasis pod to protect you from, from the queens, but 11000 years?" he whistles. "Wow. And then you grew up in, in about a year, correct?"

"Yes." I can't help but chuckle a little. "There some who wish I had taken a little more time about it."

"Teyla Emmagen and Ronon Dex, your adoptive parents, of course," he concludes rapidly. Despite my initial reaction, I find myself liking Daniel Jackson. If his idea of a quick, undetailed reading of my files includes memorizing the members of my family, what would a detailed reading mean? A pensive look comes to his face. "You really are in a unique position here. I seem to recall that you have the memories of your family, but you were raised here," he gestures to the city in general, "here on Atlantis."

"That is true," I find myself, despite the ebbing of my initial tension, reverting to the slightly stilted, 'formal/archaic' speak patterns that seemed natural to me when speaking this tongue as opposed to my own, just as Mum does, although she has different reasons. "My _athair_ gave me both all his memories, and the collective knowledge of our hive and…as my family…died…their memories were given to them as survived. Namely, me." I finish quietly.

"Wow, I'm so sorry. I mean, I'm not sorry that you're in this unique position or that you have the memories and knowledge, but um, I'm so sorry that you lost most of your family," he takes off his glass and rubs his eyes with one hand, just like Radek does when he's really frustrated with Rodney or an experiment or both. "I, uh, lost my parents when I was six, and, uh, my-my wife, died just, just a few years ago. I, I couldn't believe the pain," he pauses. "Not that I'm comparing my situation to yours, of course—"

"Dr. Jackson," I interrupt him—I can sense the pain rolling off him, even as I can see it on his face.

"Daniel," he corrects me, hastily putting his glasses back on.

"Daniel," I repeat softly. "There is no need to apologize." Can I really do this? I just met him, he's the new leader and I'm not a child anymore, it might seem presumptuous. "I don't know the pain of losing a soul-mate," it's the closest translation for the wraith idea of spousal love—someone whose spirit is incomplete without yours, as is yours without theirs, "You don't know the pain of losing twenty brothers and sisters." I must—the pain is too clear in his eyes and it beats against me like the heat from a bonfire. I slowly lower my mental defenses, letting his thoughts flow into mine.

"Wait, wait, what are you doing?" he glares at me—he must recognize what I am doing. Most humans don't. Interesting.

"Don't fight it," I tell him quietly. "I'm just letting your thoughts have somewhere to go. They were pushing against me—I can…sense your pain. Just, close your eyes."

"No, no wait," his thoughts don't stop, but I close off my mind for a moment so he can 'verbalize his concerns'. "Explain this to me. What are you doing? And why?" he looks at me suspiciously.

I sigh and gesture at the balcony. "May I sit first?"

"Oh, oh, of course, sit, please," he sits cross-legged on the cold stone along with me. He slouches, leaning on his knees, while I sit straight—inbred habit.

I think, once again, how best to explain it. It is not easy to explain something so basic—how do you explain breathing to a fish? Perhaps, begin at the beginning.

"Whether you realize it or not, you, even though you don't have specific telepathic powers, are always projecting…thoughts. Not usually your surface thoughts, the kind that form themselves into sentences of a sort, but the undercurrent, the thoughts that are memories, associations, feeling, things your thinking about 'in the back of your mind'." That's good—explain his side of things first. Now, if only I can explain what I am, what I'm trying to do…

"If I had grown up in my hive, I would have received the title _aoghaire_—I am…physically predisposed to be extremely sensitive to the thoughts of others," I try to explain. "As child, even as a fetus, I had to learn to protect myself from the minds of others—its distracting, sometimes dangerous—so I learn to create…," what was that computer defense that McKay talked about? "A mental firewall of sorts. Keep my thoughts in, other's out. You mind was practically screaming at me," I inform him, and pause to allow him time to absorb, sort through this information. He is thoughtful, as though he were weighing it in his mind.

"All I did was lower the firewall. I'm sorry if you found it…intrusive," I apologize. "Most people don't even notice. But my instinct to heal is…very strong."

"No no no no no, don't, don't be sorry," he waves his hands in the air as though trying to get rid of my apology. "I mean, off all things to have an instinct for, that, that's probably one of the better ones," once again, his voice trails off, as though he were distracted in chasing down a thought. "So, you were trying to, what, heal my mind?"

I purse my lips and nod slowly. "Yes…and no. Oh, how do I explain this?" I ask the air in general and Daniel stares at me, clearly waiting for me to finish the thought. "It's not that your mind is…no, let me try this way." I hold out my right hand, palm up so the 'feeding slit' is clear.

"Do you know about this?" I ask quietly, jerking my head at my hand.

"Yes, I was told about how the wraith have a, what did they call it, feeding slit?" he takes my hand to look more closely at it. "It's how you, um," he slams his hand into his chest, "feed?"

"Yes," I say sadly. "But we can also use it to give life. You have heard of how my athair and John escaped from the Genii?"

"Your—athair?—yes, your athair fed off Col. Sheppard in order to escape and to eliminate the soldiers, but then returned it—with interest, according to Dr. McKay," Daniel summarizes, closing his eyes as though he were able to see the reports on the backs of his eyelids.

"Well, just as we can give and take lifeforce, we can poison the mind, or draw off the poison," I explain. "Your mind—it's like a great ocean. Your conscious thoughts are like the waters in the shallows, clear and always changing out. Your subconscious thoughts are like the waters of the deeps, always there, always roiling, sometimes moving into the shallows. Those memories which cause you great pain, they are like…barrels of waste water dumped in. 80 percent of the waste is water or other things that the sea can incorporate. The other 20 percent is oils and toxins that poison the water. I can, I was trying to, draw off that 20 percent," I confess. "You would keep the memory, and the memory of the emotions, but not the poison that is slowly killing you."

He scrutinizes me, tilting his head to one side and is silent for a moment, even stops moving for a few seconds.

"That's what you did for Jack, isn't it? When you were little and he came here with Woolsey?" he asks, allowing different pieces of a puzzle to fall into place.

"Yes."

"I see," he looks down at the tiles. "Thank you. Maybe, one day I'll take you up on it, but, not right now, okay? I'm not sure I'm ready to get rid of the pain."

"You feel guilty." He doesn't answer, but stares pointedly away from me. "You can't lie to me, you know. Even with my firewalls, I can tell when someone's lying. Especially you." His mind felt, different, I suddenly realize, but I can't think of why it would. A mystery to be solved at a later date.

He shrugs and looks back at me. "It's not important," he closes off that channel of discussion, turning the interrogation lamp back at me. "I wanted to talk about you, and your brother, not myself."

I return to clipped sentences. "What do you want to know?"

He turns a piecing gaze on me. "First, what did you do to make Dr. Weir not like you? Up until a few months ago, her reports of you were almost glowing and then—" he sweeps the air with his hand. "nothing, or at best a—an uncomfortable note of your involvement in something. Care to comment?"

I bow my hand and fold my hands in my lap. "I don't know. I assumed that she, like others here, were alright with me as an infant and child, but once I grew to be an adult, I become a nightmare, an abomination living among them," I state it quietly, precisely. It hurts to know that people that I played with as a child now see me as a monster. It hurt the day I first sensed their fear and it still does. "If there was anything else, I never knew about it."

He looks down at his hands, considering, and then snaps up his head again. "Can I trust you?"

A/N: Thank you everyone for your reviews! Almost 100! I am so happy! And so sorry. Meant to get this up a few days ago, but having been running around on almost no sleep—suddenly my holiday got very busy. More soon, I promise. And more action, I hope.

A note to the reviewer Kate: Please keep in mind that it is a first person pov story, so the motives of other characters may or not be clear. However, depending on how cooperative the characters are feeling, we may find out more later.

The "uh" and "ums" may seem a little much, but again, it's Mairghread perception of him—she's having a miserable day to begin with, and her comes a babbling archaeologist who holds both her and her brother's fate in the palm of his hand. Everything about him may seem a little exaggerated to her, and will get better the more she knows him.


	21. Trust

**Trust**

* * *

"Can I trust you?"

I'm taken aback by the question. "What?"

"Can I trust you?" he asks more slowly. "All the other heads of staff say absolutely, even Woolsey says yes, but Dr. Weir warned me away from you. So, can I trust you?"

His words hang heavily in the air between us, an iron curtain threatening to descend.

"Yes," I answer simply. "This is the only home I've known—I can barely remember my hive and in any event it is long gone." Lying at the bottom of the Lantean ocean with the corpses of many. "It is as much mine to defend as it is yours." And that question is for me to ask you, Daniel Jackson—can I trust you?

He studies me for what feels like an eternity, watching me, before nodding decisively. "I believe you. I don't know exactly why, but I believe you." He clambers to his feet and I follow suit. "Now, I understand that you're brother Gilleasbachan is in the infirmary. I'd like meet him—I mean, no offense, but he is another wraith in the city, even if he is your brother."

"I understand," that he's an enemy until proven otherwise, "But Dr. Beckett was forced to place him in a medically induced coma. I'll take you to him," I extend my arm, indicating the direction we need to go to get there and we both begin walking, "But you won't be able to do much more than see him."

Dr. Jackson says nothing and we walk along in silence until we reach the infirmary. Dr. Keller accosts me as I walk in, ignoring Daniel completely.

"Mairghread, I just got on shift," she draws me into a hug. "I just heard about what happened. I'm so sorry."

"Thanks, Jennifer," I didn't realize how much I wanted, needed, Jennifer Keller till she invited me to friendship with her. I rarely initiate friendships—I know I am frightening, and the few attempts at forwardness I've made have almost completely fallen flat. John says I'm like an exclusive golf club—a person needs to be invited by another member to get in (I still do not understand golf, or golf clubs).

She seems to notice Daniel, and breaks the embrace. "If you want to talk later, just give a holler," she tells me and, with a dip of her head to Daniel, continues on her way. I don't think anyone's told her yet that this man is the new leader of Atlantis.

I continue through the infirmary to the isolation room, and Daniel follows behind me.

'So, Dr. Keller's a friend of yours?" he asks conversationally as we draw close and I nod curtly to the marines stationed outside, who kindly open the door for me after saluting Dr. Jackson, who gets somewhat flustered.

"Yes," I answer in a low voice, though I know that I could scream at the top of my lungs and Gilleasbachan wouldn't wake up. "One of the few who didn't know me as a child."

"Oh?" his interest seems piqued. "Why's that?"

I glance over my shoulder and give him a withering look, before turning completely and spreading my arms wide. "_Look _at me. Why do you _think_ I have few friends who didn't know me as an infant?"

Daniel gets a look of horrified shame, as though it just dawned on him what he had asked. "Oh, oh, god, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—"

"I know what you meant." I turn on my heel and walk over to Gilleasbachan's bed. I know I'm being rude and nasty, but _I just don't care_. I _killed_ someone today. Yes, she was a murderer. Yes, she tortured my brother, probably past his breaking point. But she was a person—not a 'good' person; in fact, it's probably accurate to say that she sacrificed her right to be a person when she began her climb to power. But at some point, she was a child, with a mother and father who loved her, a hive in which she played. That child deserved a better end than death in a dank Lantean cell miles below the ocean surface.

Gilleasbachan looks…better, but still so fragile, so small. There is more color in his cheeks—the intravenous feeding must be allowing his body to replace the blood he lost. But still his eyes are dark and his cheeks sunken, every bone clearly visible beneath a thin layer of skin. The ventilator tube protruding from his mouth terrifies me. There is something about a machine breathing for my already corpse-like brother that makes me feel as though I had already lost him again.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I turn my head to see who it belongs to. Daniel has his hand on my shoulder and his head is bowed. On his face I can see—shared pain?

"Mairghread, I am _so_ sorry." The words sound, heartfelt. Not empty platitudes, but sympathy, real sympathy, feeling the pain, sharing the suffering of another. _Sym_—conformed, like, together. _Pathos_—suffering, passion.

"He wasn't always like this, you know," I whisper, whether to myself to Daniel, I don't even know anymore. "I can remember him from before—my own memories, not my father's. _My own_" I emphasize unnecessarily. "He was so strong—I remember, I always felt safe when he was holding me." I take his too-cold hand in mind, slowly rubbing life back into his still fingers. "A protector. He was so _angry_ when mathair died. He, he wanted to know why athair let the queen kill her. After I was safely hid, he went beserk," I relate the story, even though I know it by heart and why would Dr. Daniel Jackson care what happened to wraith millennia ago? "We all thought he was dead. Why would a queen keep a rebel alive?"

I round on Dr. Jackson, my eyes blazing with the pain and sadness and anger I can contain no longer. "Now look at him! _Look at him!_ What kind of person does this to another?! Tell me! TELL ME!" I scream, balling my hands into fists on my chest.

Large, calloused hands envelope my fists and draw the rest of me away from my brother, towards the other end of the room where there are armchairs, shoved to one side for now, usually in the middle of the room. I am guided down, till I am sitting, tense and hunched. One hand lets go and moves to tilt my face upward so I meet the eyes. The face in front of me is blurred—tears, watery drops of sorrow cloud my vision, spill over my eyes and stream down my race in miniature torrents of the grief inside. A rough thumb diverts their course, turning the rapids into broad salt-water rivers.

I blink furiously, trying to clear my vision so I can see the person who offers me this silent comfort. I expect it's Carson or Dad or maybe Dr. Santiago, bright blue eyes or soft brown eyes staring back at me, calmly and comfortingly, waiting for my outburst to pass.

But, no, instead, it is quiet, blue-grey eyes looking back at me—Dr. Jackson, Daniel, his thumb still shimmering with my tears, his hands still enveloping my shaking fists.

"I, I don't know, Mairghread," he says softly, his eyes sad. "I've spent the last 10, 12 years of my life asking that question, trying to find the answer. How, how can a person see suffering and choose, _choose_, not to help, or, or at the very least, leave them alone? H-How to you look at someone in writhing pain and think it would be fun to make them scream louder? I, I just don't _know_," the anguished admission. His pain, the heart-wrenching brokenness thunders off him like heat from an explosion and in his eyes alone, I can see, he understands. Not like my family understands, having lost people to the wraith. He understands watching someone die slowly, being helpless, having power but being powerless.

For just a moment, I let down my guard, just a little, a tiny crack in my defenses, and images flood my mind—a woman, taken, controlled, someone he loved greatly, a prisoner and slave in her own body, death the only escape. A boy, also taken, and returned, but with so many scars, so much pain, then killed, but not…I do not understand this image. And…Grandpa, at the bottom of a well-lit pit, clothes torn, pain slowly being etched as lines in his face, slowly dying from within, death and life without, over and over and over and Daniel able to end it, but not…

"Thank you," I whisper.

He looks flustered, confused. "F-for what?"

"For understanding." I pause. I look at the floor, then over my shoulder at Gilleasbachan. "Everyone here, they all have lost someone to the wraith. Some…more terribly than others. But…," I glance back at Daniel, and I know that no more needs to be said. "So, thank you."

TBC

A/N: Yeah! 103 reviews! Huzzah! Thank you so much! I'm sorry this didn't get up earlier, things got really crazy. Hopefully, will update again soon. Let me know what you think!


	22. Let the Earth Hide Thee

**Let the Earth Hide Thee**

* * *

Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!  
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;  
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes  
Which thou dost glare with.—_Macbeth_

* * *

Once again, I am left alone with my brother's sleeping form and the quiet, rhythmic sounds of the beeping machines, the hiss of the ventilator, the tick of the clock.

Daniel left some time ago, to tend to the thousand and one matters a leader of so large an expedition must attend to, and the nurses are respectfully hovering in the background, allowing me to be alone with Gilleasbachan.

I have dragged (literally) a broken gurney out of the storage closet and set it up next to his bed. The only thing wrong with the gurney is that two of its wheels got bent out of shape and it doesn't roll—the result of a _very_ drunk marine with a very broken arm not wanting it set. It's perfectly good for sitting on, which is all I need it for. Someone from the laundry sent a pile of socks what need to be darned to me and I'm glad they did. There is nothing more I can do for my brother, but I must do _something_. _Anything_ to keep my mind off what I have done.

I've gotten half-way through the pile, but still have a good number to go. Even with trading partners and frequent supply runs, socks are always in demand and too precious a commodity to just throw away. Many of the socks I've darned this evening I darned before, some several times. Toes and heels are almost entirely in a black not quite identical to the original, carefully woven stitches instead of knit-and-purled ones.

If only spirits were so easily mended.

The infirmary lights have been dimmed for nighttime—it must be late. One of the new nurses already—foolishly—suggested that I return to my own room: no reason to stay with a wraith who didn't know you were there. I purposefully ignored her, pretending not to hear. I had borrowed a broken Ipod from Radek—there is a small but growing collection of broken music players hanging around the labs. All I wanted was the appearance of having music playing in my ears, an excuse to anyone who doesn't know me. Anyone who does know me knows that all the music players I borrow are less capable of playing music than the gunnery I'm sitting on.

"_Maria__, ir a la cama_."

Unfortunately, Dr. Santiago knows me, and is standing right behind me.

"_Maria_," he grasps my shoulders and turns me around, sending several undarned socks to the floor. "_Dormirse_."

"Doctor, I_ can't_ sleep," I reply, hints of a whine and an edge of desperation creeping in. "There is too much to do, and my brother—"

"Is asleep," he counters, collecting the socks and depositing them on a nearby chair. "And so should you, _mi__'ja_."

He doesn't understand—if I close my eyes, she'll be there. If I go to sleep, I'll have to face my brother's accusations.

"Mairghread, _Maria_," he says softly, holding my shoulders with his large hands, "You're shaking with sleep. _Listen_ to your body."

"_No puedo,_" I plead. "_Mi __hermano_, _su__ cirugía__…_"

"We will wake you up before sen," Dr. Santiago counters, pulling me gently but firmly off the gurney. "Nurse Kathy made a bed for you, in se corner here, see?" Indeed, a spare mattress and blankets have been arranged in the near corner, the hospital corners belying a nurses' handiwork, and I am swiftly and protestingly led there.

I open my mouth to offer another counter-argument, but am brusque cut off and lovingly shoved down onto the mattress.

"_Dormirse__, Maria."_

Obediently, I kick off my shoes and crawl under the covers, secretly determined not to go to sleep.

"Remember, _mi'ja_, we can see you," Dr. Santiago reminds me, only half-playfully as he walks out and dims the light to a dark twilight—enough for the nurses not to trip if they come in, not enough to help me stay awake.

And so, I lie here, tired to the core of my being but all together too afraid to sleep. In the darkness, it is hard to resist the undertow of exhaustion, which tugs at my consciousness, which is trying to swim against the tide with all the strength of my will, but eventually, as even the strongest swimmer is pulled out to sea…

_"Hello, murderer."_

_I spin around, to face a young girl, clothed in a loose dress of childhood, smeared with grass and mud from a day's play. Her round face possesses that childish beauty and innocence._

_"What did you call me?" I ask, fearfully, slowly approaching her._

_"Murderer__,"__ she answers darkly. __"__Mothair.__ You killed me just yesterday. Or don't you remember?"_

_"Murderer?" I echo as I begin to back away from her. __"No, no, I killed the queen—she deserved to die!" _

_"I AM the queen__,"__ she answers, and before my eyes she morphs into the hellish __monster who tortured my brother and killed my family. _

_"No! NO! __She's__ dead! __You're__ dead!" I scream at her, this…__spectre__, haunting image of my troubled mind._

_"Yes, I am__,"__ she purrs. "And __you__ killed me. __MURDERER!"_

_"No, you're not real!" I shriek back, desperate for this horrid vision to end. __"A dream!"_

_She smiles at me__, dark lips drawn back from serrated, yellowed teeth. "Wouldn't that be nice? __If you could just wish it away?__ But __its__ real, pet," she stalks towards me, her face set in a hardened expression. "But it's real. You killed me-"_

_"No"_

_" You__ had them burn my body-"_

_"No!"_

_"You're going to have to live with me—"_

_"NO!"_

_"Mairghread!"_

_I spin around to see __Athair__ standing a short way off, enveloped as always in the grey mist._

_"Come away __from her__, Mairghread," he commands me. "She can't hurt you." _

_"Can't I?" the queen hisses and grabs for me, but I suddenly find myself standing by my father, separate, but safely within __the descended cloud.__ I turn my face away from the queen so I __don't__ have to see her trying to fight her way through the fog. _

_"No, you can't__,"__ my __athair__ tells her firmly. "Be gone!_

_"Mairghread," he calls me softly__, "__Turn around. She is gone."_

_Trembling, I glance over my shoulder and sigh in relief when I see that indeed, she is gone. __"Oh, __Athair__!"__ I cry, reaching out for him, forgetting as always that I __can no__ more touch him than the image in a mirror. _

_"__Shh__shh__, sweetheart," he whispers, reaching out to me. "I know. __The first__ time you take a life, it haunts you."_

_"How long?" I ask with trepidation._

_"Forever," he tells me sadly and his shoulders slump. "Oh Mairghread, it shouldn't have happened like this. __No child is asked to be the executioner the first time __they__ feed. Always an elder, someone who is willing and ready to pass into the next world—"_

_"You can still see them?" I ask him sharply, and he nods. _

_"Yes. Some I even know their names. __Blaedvyn__—she was one of the matriarchs of the village. Ancient, tiny__,"__ a wistful look comes into his eyes. "She thanked me. She said she was ready to see her mother, her father, her husband, her youngest child again. She was ready not to be in pain anymore. Her lungs were slowly failing her—not surprising__, really; I saw over a hundred years of memories in her mind,__" he__ tells me. "Even so," he admits, "I wept that night for her. It does not matter how willing the owner of the life is, it changes you to take a life. _

_"And I have no way to make it better, my child__,"__ he says regretfully. "I am so sorry."_

_ TBC_

A/N: Sorry, its a short chapter. I'm working on it, I swear! Please, leave a review and let me know what you think so far! up next, the dreaded surgery..._  
_


	23. Hold My Hand

**Hold My**** Hand**

* * *

"Mairghread."

No, I don't want to wake up. The darkness is nice—no pain. No guilt.

"Mairghread, luv, come on, wake up lass…"

Dr. Beckett…his voice calling me back to reality…the surgery!

"Where's Gilleasbachan?!" I shout as I sit bolt upright in my bed. Carson is crouching next to me and holds up his hands passively.

"Calm down, luv," he sooths. "He's still in his bed. We've not moved him yet. But yer mum had an idea last night, thought ye might like tae hear it."

"Huh?" I answer stupidly; without the adrenaline of blind panic, I am left with a sleep-befuddled mind that doesn't want to acknowledge reality yet.

Carson smiles kindly and offers me a hand up. "Come on, let's get ye some breakfast."

In the far corner of the isolation room, a small table has been laid with breakfast things. Dad and Mum and John are already sitting there; I can smell coffee (for John and Carson), tea(for Mum, and possibly me), pound cake, eggs, sausage, and a mélange of other things.

"Hey, how ya doing, Mairghread?" John inquired flippantly and hands me a steaming mug of tea. "Its tea—don't need another coffee incident, today of all days."

I accept the drink and can't help but snicker, remembering the ill-fated time I tried coffee. If I want the taste of it, I have to have it as ice cream, without the high caffeine content.

"Are you…alright, Mairghread?" Mum asks more seriously. "You seem…worn."

"Yeah," I reply, and then, realizing that my reply was ambiguous, "I'm alright. Just a nightmare."

I receive sympathetic looks from all around, but I quickly try to change the subject. Knowing that I won't escape without eating something, I grab the simplest thing on the spread, a slice of the pound cake, and say, "Um, Carson mentioned you had an idea, Mum?"

"Ah, yes," she wraps her hands around her tea, leaning forward on her elbows. "Would it not be possible for you to…communicate with your brother _while_ Dr. Beckett is doing the surgery? Try to…explain to him why it was necessary."

I do not answer at first. I had not considered this possibility. Under the influence of the anesthetic, Gilleasbachan will have retreated deep within himself—it will not be easy to reach him. On the other hand, my powers in that area are very strong, and he may be more rational if he is deep within himself. Of course, he may also be fighting his 'subconscious demons' as Dr. Heightmeyer would call them, but if I were there, he would not be alone in fighting them. Even if I could just allay his fears a _little_, it may be of great help.

"Mairghread?" John calls me back to the present. "What d'ya think? Can you do it?"

I nod slowly. " I think so. But," I look to Carson, "What would Dr. Beckett think of me cluttering up his operating room?"

He looks up from his coffee mug. "Think nothin' of it, lass," he assures me. "Ah take it ye'd be at his head, right? Well, ye on one side, Dr. DeVries on the other tae keep an eye on the anesthetic, and Ah'd nae know ye were there."

"Well then," John claps his hands and refills his coffee mug. "Hopefully that settles that. Now, Mary," he looks pointedly at my half-slice of pound cake. "You _are_ going to eat more than that for breakfast, right?"

As of this moment, I hate John Sheppard. Passionately.

My stomach is not pleased at my forced, large breakfast. In fact, it is seriously considering rebelling.

At Carson's suggestion, I'm taking a shower in one of the infirmary bathrooms while the nurses prep Gilleasbachan for surgery. I had tried to protest, but Carson kindly and gently pointed out that the nurses knew what they were doing and that since Gilleasbachan was unconscious, there was no conscious comfort I could give him by being there. Hence, I am here in the shower room usually reserved for nurses and doctors. I noticed when I came in that a pair of blue surgical scrubs, as well as clean underwear(I try not to wonder who has been raiding my dresser), has been laid out for me on the sink counter.

I strip slowly, my muscles stiff from the abuse I have given them over the past three days. The rosy pink dress, hung carefully on a hook so it doesn't wrinkle. The white shirt folded inside out so I know to wash it.

"Aiëà!" I yelp as I step under the streaming water—its _freezing! _My hand shakes violently as I try to adjust the temperature to warmer, but the touch controls are sensitive—I end up alternately scalding and freezing myself several times before I can stabilize the water at a nice, warm temperature.

_I'll never be warm again, bitch_…

"Shut up!" I mutter and shake my head to rid myself of the haunting voice of the queen. I hate her, I _hate_ her I HATE HER!!!

_Mairghread, breathe_… I hear Mum's voice reminding me gently that getting worked up will not solve anything…try to calm down…force the queen to the back of my mind, where I can't hear her.

The harsh infirmary soap sloughs off the top layer of my skin, and I vaguely wish I had thought to bring soap from my apartment. Unlike yesterday (or was it two days ago?) I have no desire to scrub my skin away. I am calm enough to know that the part of the queen that clings to me is not something I can wash away, no matter how harsh the soap.

_You'll never get rid of me, you know._

_Murderer_.

"Oh, shut it," I growl at the deadly purr in the back of my head and stand under the spray, letting it dampen my hair and rinse away the dirt and soap. "I don't have time for you right now." That was very McKay sounding—how much time have I spent around him lately?

The infirmary air bites frostily when I step out of the steamy shower. I towel off quickly and clamber into the thin scrubs. They do little for warmth, but they do stop the draughts. I quickly braid my hair and slip it inside the surgical cap—if it's going to get in there at all, it's going to have to be while it's damp.

I realize, a bit belatedly, that I have no footwear; I kicked off my shoes and socks to sleep last night and never bothered to retrieve them. Oh well. Dr. Beckett will throw a fit if—no, not if, _when_—he sees me walking barefoot through the infirmary. Hmm…a pair of slipper-socks and surgical booties should conceal my lack of properly soled footcovering.

However, being barefoot means that I can easily slip back into my brother's room.

I enter the isolation room silently, all though it turns out there was no need for my stealth. Nurses have already gathered around my brother to prepare him for surgery.

I want to go touch him, reassure him that it is alright—reassure myself that he is still there, that he made it through the night, but this is foolishness—I can hear the monitors beeping quietly, rhythmically—they make no noise for the dead. Right now, I'd only be in the way, and so I sneak out again and go up to the observation room.

As I mount the stairs, I hear Mum, Dad and John's voice floating down to me.

"John, we understand that the regulations of your military—" Mum sounds…worried?

"Forget it Teyla," John's voice rings with his customary dismissal of the absurd. "Just 'cause you guys are on my team, doesn't make you military."

"Sheppard—" Dad's voice, also tinted with a worry that I rarely hear, though I can often sense.

"Seriously, stop worrying," John sounds happy, playful. "Come on, Chuck had bets going on you guys. Most people lost, by the way. You guys held out a long time."

Marriage—Mum and Dad are finally getting married. Why are they asking John first? Why haven't they told me yet?

"The betting pool knows?" Dad growls, and I imagine him stepping up to tower over John menacingly.

I choose this moment to step fully into the half-light of the stairwell and make my presence known, trying not to show that I overheard the conversation.

"Hello," I greet them, hopefully not sounding hurt.

All three of them look vaguely like they've been caught at stealing from the chocolate reserves in the kitchen. John is the first to recover.

"Hey Mairghread," he tries for chipper, and falls slightly short, but I doubt any but the most sensitive ears would have noticed. "Come to keep an bird's-eye on your brother?"

"Yes," I step past him, ignoring the obscure reference I don't feel like digging out the meaning of, into the room and up to the large, one way mirror. From up here, I can see everything that the nurses are doing.

They have stripped him of his scrubs, just a sheet covering his hips and legs. His arm casts have already been covered with protective plastic bags and they are gently sponging him down, bit by bit. His hair is all tucked up inside a disposable surgical cap, and small pieces of tape have been laid over his eyes.

"Mairghread, Beckett just called. They're about to take him into surgery for the final prep. He says you should head down and get yourself situated," John tells me, standing beside me and looking down at my brother. "You know, I never thought I'd feel sorry for a wraith," he looks at my raised eyebrows before rocking on his heels and turning to the window again. "Present company accepted, of course."

I nod and shoot over my shoulder as I head down to the surgery. "Just don't think of Gilleasbachan as another Michael."

The operating room is cold and dry, but I hardly feel it I'm so worried for my brother. I sit on the plastic covered chair they've given me, my face covered by a surgical mask, trying to calm myself sufficiently.

They wheel him in presently, one nurse using a bag to breathe for him until they can connect him to the operating room ventilator.

"On the count of three. One, two three!" the head nurse orders and they shift Gilleasbachan off the gurney using the bottom sheet and onto the operating table. They then roll him from one side to another to retrieve the sheet and throw it in a laundry bin. Two of the nurses busy themselves with covering him with green surgical cloths while another hooks him up to the ventilator and yet another transfers his many IV bags.

In the next room, I hear Dr. Beckett and Dr. Biro washing their hands and getting ready for the surgery. Trays of instruments I'd rather not have seen are brought out of the autoclave and set ready for use. One the nurses, Joshua by his voice, is carefully coating Gilleasbachan's stomach and chest with dark orange iodine. As I look on in fascination—whether I can call it horrified or not I'm not sure—one of the nurses mercifully raises a curtain over Gilleasbachan's neck, so I can see his head but nothing else.

"Hello there, Mairghread" Dr. DeVries hails me, the corners of his eyes betraying a smile hid by the mask as he checks on Gilleasbachan. "How are you today?"

"Well enough," I reply quietly. Dr. DeVries is a very nice man, but sometimes just a bit too cheerful.

"Ah, not really in the mood for converzation, then?" he asks as he checks the IV bags and arranges a new set of syringes for the surgery. "I understand. Um," he turns to look at me. "Anything I need to know before you….," he waves his hand in a circle, as though it would provide him with the answer. "Do what it is you're going to do?"

"No," I reply succinctly. "Except maybe keep me from hitting my head if I happen to fall off the chair?"

He smiles again. "Of course."

"Alrecht, shaa we gie started 'en?" Dr. Beckett asks as he comes in and a nurse puts gloves over his hands. His accent is particularly thick today—I can't help but think that he's concerned about this surgery. "Mairghread, lass, ye ready tae begin?"

"Aye," I reply and lean forward to touch foreheads with my brother, placing my hands on either side of his head.

"Let's begin 'en…"

The noises of the operating room fade as I slip more and more into the 'telepathic world'. I fold into my own mind before reaching out to Gilleasbachan.

_There is something…blocking me. I can't tell if it's the effects of the __anesthetic__ or because Gilleasbachan is trying to keep me out. __Slowly, gently I push forward, but it's like pushing through week old jello or semi-set cement. __I feel it ooze around me__, at once repelling me and closing in behind me. The further I press onward, the more difficult it becomes—I feel as though I were being smothered, despite the knowledge that no such thing can in fact be happening to me. _

_All at once, the barrier disappears, but the darkness does not. As I stand still __and try__ to orient myself, I find once again that I cast a soft light around me. Today, however, it is not as bright as it was before. __Perhaps because I have acknowledged the darkness in my soul…or perhaps because unlike last time, I am unsure of what I need to do._

_I stumble forward, __casting around for any sign of my brother and hoping that I am lurch towards him, and not back towards the pudding wall._

_"Gilleasbachan!"__ I call out to him as I continue my search. "Where are you?"_

_"Go away," returns the plaintive cry to my ears, and instantly I know where to find him. I move in that direction and find my brother curled up despondently in the roots of a tree._

_"Go away!" he shouts at me, not moving from his hiding spot._

_"Gilleasbachan, will you please just listen to me?" I beg him, crouching down so I am eye to eye with him. "Please, just let me explain."_

_"No!" he shouts back and then mutters. __"Torturer.__Betrayer__."_

_"No, no, Gil," I try to block out his words, which have echoed in my mind all night. "No, Gil. Dr. Beckett and I, we're healing you."_

_"By _cutting_ me?" he shoots back. "By ripping me to shred__s__ all over again like __she__ did?__"_

_His words slice through my heart, but I shake my head. "No, no." an idea__...maybe... "Gil, what would happen if one of the kids had gotten into one of the control panels and rearranged all the connectors? You'd have to disconnect them and pit them back in right order, right?"_

_He nods slowly, clearly not sure where I'm going with this. _

_"Gil, __its__ just like that. We have to undo the damage."_

_He thinks about this for a moment, before shooting back, __"You said no one would hurt me again! You __swore__!" he screams back at me. Mentally I sigh—so much for comparison._

_"Gilleasbachan, they __wont__!" I shout back. "Can you feel any pain? __Anything?__Even a tiny pinprick?__An itch?"_

_He shakes his head slowly, confusedly. "No…"_

_"They're doing the surgery right now," I tell him. "But there's no pain, is there?"_

_Once again, __he has to slowly shake his head, before shooting back, "But there will be!"_

_"No, no there won't, Gil," I tell him __placatingly__. "By the time you wake up, you'll be healed. And any pain you still feel from the broken bones, Dr. Beckett has medicine to make the pain go away."_

_At last he looks into my eyes, almost childlike in his trust. __"Really?__Promise?"_

_I allow myself a small smile. __"Yes, Gilleasbachan.__ I promise."_

_He nods enthusiastically. "Okay." But almost immediately, he seems afraid again. "__She__ won't like it. No, no she won't," he mutters almost to himself and it is all too clear who that 'she' is. _

_"Gilleasbachan, she's dead," I remind him. "I killed her. John burned her. The marines scattered her ashes all over the sea. She's gone__ and the Spirits aren't going to let her out of her punishment so she can come hurt you."_

_"But I can __see__ her," he __whispers like__ a frightened child. Kate warned me about this, that he may act child-like while he is healing one minute, the next like a warrior backed into a corner. _

_"Here," I tell him, stretching out my hand to him. "Hold my hand. She won't dare come near me."_

_"You're sure?" he whispers, his hand just centimetres from my own._

_"Yes," I promise him. "Just hold my hand."_

_Trembling, he grasps my hand in his, his grip strong and fierce. I move to sit down next to him under the tree._

_"Dr. Beckett says you should be able to eat in a few days at most," I tell him. "What would you like to eat?"_

_"Eat?" his eyes light up at the mention of eating. __"Food?__REAL food?"_

_I laugh, "Yes. What else?"_

_His countenance darkens for a moment and I realize that that was a stupid thing to say, so I quickly go back to food. "What's your favourite meal? Um, simple meal—Dr. Beckett probably wouldn't want you to start out with a steak dinner."_

_"What's steak?"_

_Oops, earth references for someone who never heard of the place. __"Um, a really fancy meal.__ Like a __khuzark__, but a little tougher and more flavourful."_

_"Oh," I think he's trying to imagine such a strange meat, but he gives up after a moment. "Um, __isean__ and __tava__ bean soup? Bread?" his eyes get a __far away__ look, as though he were being transported back to his childhood. I realize, in a flash, that we must be very deep in his mind—perhaps here, all his fears and pains have not had as much penetrative power. __Maybe that's why he was more willing to accept my explanations than when he was awake. To__ be __sure, __even__ here he's not totally free,__ but..._

_"Mairghread?" he whispers my name and I shake __my self__ free of the thoughts, turning my attention back to him._

_"Yes Gilleasbachan?" _

_"Will you stay here? __Just for a little while?"_

_In his voice, I hear his fear, the fear which supersedes all else for a wraith—the fear of being completely alone._

_"Of course," I squeeze his hand lightly. "I won't go until I have to. I promise__."_

TBC

A/N: Sorry its been so long, but the chapter is longer and I am working on it!


	24. The Smell of Blood Still

**The Smell of Blood Still**

* * *

_I do not know how long I have sat here with Gilleasbachan under this huge, gnarled tree in his mind__. But he seems, not only content, but desperate that I should simply sit here, holding his hand. Not speaking. Just being._

_"Mairghread?" he whispers my name, jerking me out of my own thoughts. "Are we alone?"_

_"Hmm?" I turn to look at him. "What?"_

_He looks away from me, as though now that the question has been asked, he doesn't really want to know the answer. Still, he whispers, "Are we the only ones? Did anyone else from our family…escape?"_

_I squeeze his hand gently__. "No, Gil, we're not alone. Athair survived too."_

_Gilleasbachan's face lights up. "Is he here?"_

_"I am so sorry, Gilleasbachan," I shake my head. "No. He's alive, but I don't know where he is right now."_

_At this news he appears crestfallen and turns away from me. "Oh."_

_"But we'll _find_ him, Gilleasbachan," I promise him, and myself. "I promise, we'll bring him home."_

_I hear a voice in the back of my head, suspiciously John-like, tell me that I'm making a lot of promises that I can't keep. I promptly tell him to go away—somehow, I'm going to find my athair._

_A sharp, painful jolt, though distant, tries to pull me back to reality. _

_"Ouch." I mutter darkly, before turning to my confused brother. "Gilleasbachan, Dr. Beckett is telling me to go back to them."_

_"No!" he clutches my hand, vise-like. I realize in a flash why—he's afraid of being alone. It is the worst fear of any wraith—not the fear of falling or drowning or even death, but isolation__. He was alone for so long…it is more painful than any wound, aloneness. "Please, don't leave me!"_

_I place my free hand on top of his head. "Shh, it's okay. I'll just be a few minutes, I promise. Have I broken my word yet?"_

_Another electric shock, stronger than the last one, making it more difficult to stay with my brother…_

_His answer is drawn out, as though still slightly uncertain. "No…"_

_"And I won't," I inform him. "I swear, I'll see you in just a moment when you wake up."_

_He gives my hand one last squeeze, but lets go, whispering, "Okay."_

_Another __shock, more painful than the rest__…_

"Alright, alright! Stop it," I mutter, raising my head and batting Carson's hand away from the machine which I know is responsible for delivering the mini-lightning bolts through the patch on my arm. "I'm here. Leave off."

"Ach, lass, ye had us a mite worried," Carson tells me, peeling the lead from my arm and helping me to stand up. "Usually ye come back when we call."

"I had to go very deep into his mind," I explain tersely, swaying slightly as the blood rushes from my head to my feet and I try to adjust to the physical world. "I was able to convince him it was for his own good."

Carson pulls my eyelids apart and flashes his penlight in my eyes. "Ah'm glad tae hear that."

"Hey!" I bat his hands away, feeling rather short tempered. "I was communicating telepathically, not being knocked about a space station!"

"Sorry," Carson puts the penlight back into his pocket and turns to the nurses who are standing patiently by, waiting for the word to move Gilleasbachan to recovery. "Alright, ye can take him back tae his room. An' please tell Dr. DeVries he can start brin' th' laddie back tae the land o' the livin'."

I grab hold of Carson's arm. "Carson, I promised him it wouldn't hurt when he woke up. Please," I ask quietly, "Don't make me a liar."

"Mairghread, have Ah _ever_ been stingy with the 'happy' drugs?" Carson replies in mock hurt before laying hand comfortingly on my shoulder and leading me out of the operating room. "It'll be alright, Mairghread. It won't be soon, but it'll work itself out in the end."

"He asked if we were the only ones left. When I told him Athair was still alive, he wanted to see him," I tell Dr. Beckett softly as we follow the nurses to the isolation room. "I had to tell him I don't know where Athair is. He looked so…lost," I finish lamely, setting my hair free from the surgical cap and shaking the braids from their twisted positions.

"Aye," Carson sighs and mentally opens the doors to Gilleasbachan's room. "Ah'd be too."

He guides me to Gilleasbachan's bedside. My brother is slightly paler than this morning, its true, and the white bandages wrapped around his torso are spotted with deep indigo blood, but there is also something…easier, more relaxed about his face. I realize, with a start, that he is not on the ventilator anymore, but only an oxygen mask, silently fogging and clearing with each _unlabored_ breath.

"It took a bit of work, but we were able tae get his heart and lungs set tae rights, as well as his stomach," Dr. Beckett tells me smilingly before frowning. "It's a bloody miracle he was alive at all when you found him," he mutters darkly before once again smiling. "It should be fairly smooth sailing from here. Settin' the bones will be a mite tricky, but not horrendous. And Dr. Heightmeyer should help with the rest."

I nod, not bothering to voice the questions which still have to run through my mind. How much experience does she have with helping people who were tortured for thousands of years?

Carson takes me by the shoulders and forces me to look at him. "Mairghread, go back tae yer room. Get changed. Take a nap. Eat lunch. Do some o' that calculus Ah know Rodney assigned you. Read a book. Gilleasbachan won't be awake for a few hours at least. Take care o' yerself."

I flash him a smile. "Dr. Beckett, I just found my brother. Do you really expect me to leave him alone?"

He scrubs his hair with one hand and shakes his head. "Nae. But do get changed and eat lunch. Bring yer homework here."

"Thank you, Uncle Carson," I kiss him lightly on the cheek and make my escape before he can think of anything else within his authority as CMO of the base to order me to do.

"A _real_ lunch, lass. With protein!" he calls after my retreating back.

Our apartment looks…disused, at this point. I'm not entirely sure where Mum and Dad have been exactly, but I'm fairly certain they were hovering somewhere in the background, ready to jump in if they thought I needed it. As a result the apartment is…tidy. Dishes in the cabinets instead of the sinks, the sofa cushions in their designated spots instead of strewn all over the floor. Even my room is neat, despite my whirlwind activities yesterday. Clothes in the hamper, books neatly stacked, the computer 'sleeping' contentedly (while I understand how a wraithian computer could sleep, being organic, I do not understand how their inorganic concoctions of silicon and plastic can 'sleep').

I walk over to my small stereo system and press play, not really caring what is in there, so long as it is music…hopefully something that Carson or Lorne gave me. John's rock music is nice, but I really want something…harmonious. I have enough dissonance in my life right now.

As it whirs to life, I walk over to my closet, peeling off the scrubs and throwing them discourteously on the floor.

_Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,__et lux perpetua luceat eis._

Mozart's Requiem Mass—how bitterly appropriate… "Grant them eternal rest, Lord,and let perpetual light shine on them."

Black—I somehow grabbed my one black dress from my closet…loose, simple, nothing like the queen's dress, but still…black. I wear it for the memorial services for the fallen, or on a bad day, when clothing needs to match mood.

I throw it violently from me, letting it crumple in the corner. I swore Gilleasbachan would never see me in black…

_Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion,__et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.__Exaudi orationem meam,__ad te omnis care veniet.__Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,__et lux perpetua luceat eis._

This is a prayer I could sing for my family—grant them eternal rest and let perpetual light shine on them—but can I sing it for the one I killed?

_Kyrie eleison _

_Christe eleison_

_Kyrie eleison…_

"Lord have mercy"—at this moment, I envy everyone on this base who can say those words with faith. For me, they are something…foreign. The music resonates, the text resonates in its plea for the dead, but it is not my faith. I wait for judgement after death—nothing I can do with assuage the Spirits anger. There is no way for me to expiate my guilt, no prayers, no sacrifices, nothing I can do to evict the queen's voice from my head.

_Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?__quem patronum rogaturus,__cum vix justus sit securus?_

"What shall a wretch like me say? Who shall intercede for me, when the just ones need mercy?"

If I had died in the stasis pod, I could have gone to the Land beyond the stars clean, innocent of blood. Even if I had died by that Lantean bio-weapon as a child, I could have been happy. But now? It does not matter if her death was just or that she was deserving of a death more violent and prolonged. It does not matter that I gave her the last mercy of a vision of beauty. Her blood stains my hands, and her death is written onto my soul, a mark to be examined, a guilty stain…

I sink down onto my bed, listening to the darkly resonant voices which flow out of the speakers to fill the whole room, to fill my head, mirroring my grief and guilt, my desperate wish that it is all a dream, that my brother will have been returned to me and I still guiltless…

_Juste judex ultionis,__donum fac remissionis__ante diem rationis._

_Ingemisco, tamquam reus:__culpa rubet vultus meus;_

If only.

Tears trickle down my face, falling to the floor with a soft _plap…plap…plap…_

_Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood  
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather  
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,  
Making the green one red._

_What, __ will these hands ne__'__er be clean?  
Here's the smell of the blood still. All the__ perfumes  
of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand._

Tears, idle tears—they will not wash away the blood, for the blood has been absorbed—it is not on my hands, but in them. I could cut off my hands, but the blood would cling to me still. Idle tears.

I slap myself, hard. What right have I to wallow in guilt and self-pity? My brother will awaken soon, and I must be with him as I promised.

_Sleek o'er your rugged looks.  
Be bright and jovial among your guests tonight_

TBC

A/N: Thank you for all the reviews! It makes me so happy and makes me write faster!

Also, I have decided that this part of the story (the rescue) is almost over, and that a new stage is beginning(the healing). A new stage requires a different title. I think that this will go on maybe one, two more chapters and then we will move to part two. The continuation of this tale will be "Learning to Live". Thanks for traveling the road so far, and I hope you continue with me.

Credits: for the text to Mozart's Requiem Mass is from www . stmatthews . com / choir / mozartsrequiem . htm (remove spaces)

text of "MacBeth" by Shakespeare, which are the other quotations. www . gutenberg . org / dirs / etext99 / 1ws3411 . txt (remove spaces)


	25. Being Loved Gives You Strength

**Being Loved Gives You Strength**

_"__Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage.__"__-__Lao Tzu_

Filled with this renewed determination and purpose (is the purpose truly and only to help my brother or also something to occupy my hands and mind, so I can't think about what I've done?), I leap from my bed and tear into my closet, looking for something that is both comfortable and cheerful. A butter-yellow blouse and loose brown pinafore seem to fit the bill best; I undo my single long braid, instead plaiting two smaller braids from my temples and then braiding them together to restrain the rest, which is waved from drying in a braid instead of its usually 'poker-straightness'.

I allow myself a glance in the mirror—my smile is slightly forced, and my eyes are darkened such that if I were human they were be red-rimmed and swollen from crying, but the overall effect is one of cheerfulness, which is exactly what my brother needs.

I root around my closet floor until I find a bag, one of uncertain origin and age. Into this I stuff the calculus text that Rodney and Radek prepared especially for me, a tablet and its accompanying roll-up keyboard, and my copy of _The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_, which John tells me is an essential part of my earth education. Next, I believe he is having me read _Gulliver's Travels_ and _A Modest Proposal_.

I head towards the mess hall by as many back-routes as I can—I do not want either the stares or the pity of people who have by now heard that my half-dead brother was brought back with me. If I can make it to the Kitchen without being seen, one of the cooks on duty, I'm sure, will be kind enough to give me a sandwich and maybe a cookie to take with me to the infirmary.

I have to pass through one of the less-used lab sections on my way. As I pass the lab with an unlit sign (which when lit screams "CAUTION!!! HAZMAT PROTOCALS IN PLACE!!! WE'RE TALKING NANITES PEOPLE!!! GO AWAY!!!" in what is a quintessential Rodney McKay warning), I hear voices coming from inside—inaudible to human ears because of the triple, negative-pressure doors, but distinct to me. I determine to pass by silently, not wanting to disturb whoever is inside, but as I draw closer, I hear my name being thrown around and curiosity or a sense of self-preservation takes hold, so that I stop just beyond the door to listen.

"So, maybe you two can explain something for me," Dr. Jackson's voice seeps out to me, speaking typically quickly. "Up until about two months ago, Dr. Weir's weekly reports spoke, for lack of a better term, glowingly about Mairghread. Her reports said that our young wraith was an asset, particularly as she grew older and as able to communicate more about wraith society and technology. Then, all of a sudden, she starts blaming malfunctions on Mairghread, saying she's a saboteur. But neither of you seem to think so…"

"No, we don't," Rodney's voice burns through the door like acid. "And we already explained this to you, so if you don't mind, we have a lot of very important work—"

"No no, you misunderstood my question," Dr. Jackson re-interupts—in my mind, I can see him holding up one hand and shaking his head. "If nothing changed in Mairghread's actions, what happened to Dr. Weir?"

"Oh."

There is a long pause, and I can almost see Rodney looking very uncomfortable.

"You read the reports, right?" I hear John's voice, slightly hesitant, with the edge that always sounds a little sneering to my ears, though I know that is not his intent. "Elizabeth got infected with nanites a while back."

"Yes yes, I read the reports, but it was my understanding you were able to disable them," Dr. Jackson spits out quickly.

"Yes, well, apparently, the little bastards had a plan B," says Rodney bitingly. "It seems they created a sleeper cell of _organic_ nanites. Undetectable and immune to EM radiation." His voice gets closer and farther and closer—he's pacing.

"Wait wait wait. What?"

"The collective Docs think they were put on a kinda time delay," John's voice cuts in—well, if you want to discuss highly sensitive topics, this is the place to do it: very out of the way and very forbidden for everyone Rodney hasn't authorized. "She was fine, and then a few months ago, she started getting kinda…"

"Paranoid."

"Thank you, Rodney. I was just going to say that," John seems to be casting that remark behind him, because his voice is softer to my ears. "Anyway, she started gettin' paranoid and then Beckett noticed some abnormal cells in her bloodwork…"

"That were acting _suspiciously_ like nanites," Rodney cuts in again. "Turns out they were. Little organic robots, like a wraith ship," he mutters and I wince.

Dr. Jackson's voice chimes in again, "So…Dr. Weir got recalled to earth? Why?"

"_Because_," Rodney drawls in his 'I'm explaining the very obvious to someone who is clearly incredibly thick' voice, "One: Stargate Command has more experience dealing with replicators of weird varieties. Two: Milky Way replicators communicate on a different subspace frequency, so while here she could potentially start broadcasting our position, on earth she won't. It'd be like Zelenka walking into the middle of a wraith convention and explaining our operating systems in Czech—the other replicators won't recognize that Elizabeth's nanites are saying anything. Three…" his voice breaks off. "Well, you can figure out the other reasons. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm very busy…"

I take that as my cue to move as quickly as possible away from the lab and be on my way to the kitchens.

Nanites, replicators, organic sleeper cells—Rodney's words buzz through my mind in chaotic order; in solving one mystery for me, he has given me many more. Before, I simply assumed Dr. Weir came to dislike me because I look like a monster—only apparent youth and clothes differentiate me from the murderous queens.

_Now you are a monster…_

Shut up.

But, if it was not simply appearance, but the nanites causing paranoia…but is that really all there is? Can all her hatred of me be explained by tiny alien robots? Or did they simply magnify, give credence to what was already there? Can I blame these things for changing my Aunt Elizabeth who played with me on the floor of our apartment when she had a few minutes to spare to the distant and disdainful Dr. Weir?

_Face it—she hates you because __you're__ no different from me…a murderer…_

I told you to shut up.

I firmly try to shove all these thoughts away from myself when I can smell the faint aromas of cooking rolling towards me. I slip through the back door of the kitchens and nearly collide with Simon, one of the cooks.

"_Mon __dieu_Mairghread, you nearly ran me over!" he exclaims as he tries to balance a large tray of what looks like tuna-fish sandwiches.

"_Pardonnez-moi_," I apologize and snag one of the sandwiches from the tray, holding it up inquiringly. "Tuna?"

"_Ouais_" he affirms my suspicions. Simon sets the tray down on the counter, and takes hold of my shoulders, holding my eyes with his hazel ones. "Mairghread, _chérie_, how is your brother?"

"Does news really travel that fast?" a part of me knows that it does, but a part of me is permanently wishing it didn't.

"_Mais__oui_" Simon feigns shock and smiles before becoming serious again and repeating his question. "But you did not answer my question. How is your brother?"

"The surgery went well," I reply somewhat evasively. "Beyond that, _qui peux dire__"_

"Of course," Simon claps my shoulders in the bizarre human gesture of sympathy and comfort. "_Si __tu__devrais__quelque__ chose_…"

"I'll give you a call," I assure him with a smile. "Thank you Simon." I glance around the kitchens, but can't see anything resembling a desert. "Any chance of sneaking a dessert?"

Simon is indignant. "What do you zink thiz iz? A cave? Are we barbarians?! Of course zere iz dessert!" he disappears into the semi-controlled chaos of kitchens, only to reappear a moment later with a lunch tray bearing a water bottle and what looks like a cross between a small cake and a small pudding. "C'est bread pudding du chocolat," he informs me, plucking the sandwich from my hand and placing it firmly on the tray. "Now go. Eat. Be with your brother. Get out of here! We have work to do!"

"Yes sir!" I laugh and scoot out of the kitchen's carrying my tray—I don't think I'll get berated too much for this lunch.

I make it to the infirmary without encountering anyone and without the straps on my bag breaking. Several teams have just returned from off-world, and so no one notices me as I slip in and sneak around the edge to towards the back and the isolation rooms. From the looks of it, the teams were lucky this morning—a few scraps, what looks like maybe a sprained ankle, but no serious injuries; the floor is miraculously free of blood.

The doors to the isolation room slid open for me, thanks to the motion detectors that were installed for the benefit of us who do not and cannot have the ancient gene.

Gilleasbachan's room is blessedly silent. In the far corner sits a nurse, Ryan, I think. He looks up and waves slightly to me as I enter. I nod back, softly setting the tray on the bed table and dropping my bag into the cushioned chair someone was kind enough to leave next to the bed.

I kick off my shoes and shove them under the chair. I then realize that it was silly to put the bag in the chair, because I need to sit there. So I carefully lower the bag to the floor, remembering that there is a tablet inside besides the books.

I am reaching for the sandwich when Ryan's voice next to my ear makes me jump and drop the (thankfully) plastic wrapped sandwich on the floor.

"Hey Mary," he starts and then laughs when I ungracefully send my lunch-hopeful soaring several feet behind me. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," he apologizes, picking up the sandwich and returning it to me. "Just wanted to let you know, Dr Beckett was here a little while ago, said your brother Gillez, Gilles—"

"Gil"

"Gil, has pretty much healed from the surgery. If he's thirsty when he wakes up, you can give him some ice chips. We got a bucket of them over there," he points to an insulated ice bucket and plastic cups. "He also said to make sure you eat dinner."

"It's just lunchtime and he's worried about me eating dinner," I mutter rebelliously to myself as I start unwrapping the sandwich, and Ryan laughs.

"Don't shoot the messenger," he admonishes me and I have to smile.

"Sorry," I offer him half my sandwich. "Tuna?"

"No thanks, I already ate," he heads back to his desk. "Just holler if you need anything."

I take a bite of the sandwich and hear the doors slide open behind me.

"Mairghread?"

I turn around half-way to see Mum and Dad approaching somewhat…tentatively?

"Hi Mum, Dad," I greet them and take another bite of my sandwich. I should be nicer, but I admit a slight bitterness…

"Mairghread, we would like to talk to you about something," Mum continues as she and Dad both drag chairs over to be near me.

"Alright," I put down my lunch and turn my chair to face them, but so I still have Gilleasbachan in the corner of my eye.

Dad leans back in his chair, stretching out his long legs and Mum folds her hand calmly in her lap as she begins, "Mairghread, Ronon, your father and I have decided to be married," she tells me serenely and bluntly. "But I believe you already knew that," she adds as she watches my reaction—was my facial expression that obvious?

Dad looks very uncomfortable—very happy, but also very uncomfortable. His eyes continually dart over my shoulder towards Gilleasbachan. I can only hope that in time he will see that my brother is as innocent as I. Perhaps more so.

"I overheard you and John speaking," I admit. "But I had been wondering for some time when you would, what's the term, tie the knot?"

Mum and Dad exchange a look, as though sharing a private joke before looking at me again. Or in Dad's case, over my shoulder at the new wraith.

"Since John has…given his blessing?...so to speak, we will have one ceremony on New Athos, and another, here on Atlantis," Mum tells me. "We are hoping to be wed in two weeks."

"Two ceremonies?" I repeat, confused. "Why?"

Mum looks upset, but explains, "You would not be able to attend the ceremony on New Athos."

Of course. I'm a wraith. The enemy. I know Mum hasn't told the Athosians that the child she adopted is a wraith. A part of me knew that when she was married according to Athosian custom, though as her daughter I should take part in the ceremony, I would not and could not.

And yet, it stings.

"So…," Dad interrupts, "John offered to have a second ceremony here."

"Which one counts?" I ask, confused. I like the idea, if only because it means I will be able to see my adoptive parents married, but two ceremonies?

Dad shrugs "Both of 'em."

I share a look with my parents—earth customs are _weird_.

"Uhhhhnnn…"

A low moan behind me snaps my attention from my parents to my brother.

"Mum, Dad, I'm really sorry—"

"Go," they say together and I share a brief smile with them before vaulting over the back of the chair to stand as close to Gilleasbachan as the bed and his casts will allow.

In the corner of the room, I hear Ryan paging Dr. Beckett.

"Gilleasbachan?" I call him softly as his eyelids flutter and the oxygen mask fogs more rapidly. "Gilleasbachan, please open your eyes. Look at me," I plead with him, holding his fingers, giving him an anchor back to the land of the living.

"Urgh," he moans quietly and rolls his head towards the sound of my voice, heavy eyelids pealing apart and stuggling to focus through the lingering fog of anesthetic and painkillers. "Mair—"

"Shh, s'ok," I reassure him, stroking his hair gently. "How do you feel?"

He licks his lips, and whispers hoarsely, "Thirsty."

"Here," rumbles Dad's voice and a cup full of ice chips appears in my hand. I glance over my shoulder; Dad looks both uncomfortable and supremely proud—it is a peculiar blend of emotions to see on his face.

"Thanks." I turn back to Gilleasbachan, lifting up the oxygen mask for a moment to slide a small ice chip between his parched lips. He draws it into his mouth instinctively and immediately there is a look of pure relief on his face. "Better?"

"More?" he begs me, his eyes imploring me even more pitifully. I comply and slide a slightly larger chip into his mouth. I hope Dr. Beckett gets here soon, and switches Gilleasbachan to a nasal canula—in some ways a little more uncomfortable than the oxygen mask, but so much more convenient.

Mum comes along side me and rests a hand on my shoulder, silently asking my permission to speak to my brother. I acquiesce and step slightly to one side so he can see her better.

"Hello, Gilleasbachan," she greets him softly, gently laying her hand on his in a comforting touch that makes him wince slightly. "I am Teyla."

Gilleasbachan's eyes dart frightenedly towards me, whether seeking comfort or guidance or rescue I can't be certain but I am quick to reassure him.

"It's all right, Gilleasbachan. Teyla," it is so strange to use her first name—she is mum to me, always has been and always will be, "Is my adoptive mother. You don't have to be afraid."

"Adoptive mother?" he echoes, his voice harsh and raw though less so thanks to the ice, looking back at Mum. "You took care of my little sister?"

"Yes," Mum replies, slightly taken aback. "Since Cullough revealed her location to Colonel Sheppard."

He seems to be trying to read Mum's character through her face and reaches a decision. "Good."

I glance over my shoulder, wondering if Dad has hung around, but he is gone. I know that he will not have gone far—his protective instincts are blazing right now—but if he has not come to terms with my brother, better that he not be here to scare him.

The doors slide open again and Carson comes over, smiling and friendly, pulling his stethoscope from his shoulders and holding it lightly in his hands as he stands on the other side of the bed.

"Well, hello again, Gilleasbachan," he says companionably. "Remember me, lad?"

Gilleasbachan nods slightly. "Doct'r Beckett."

"Aye, that's me," Carson smiles and holds up his stethoscope. "Mind if I take a listen tae yer lungs?"

A fearful, questioning look from Gilleasbachan is thrown my way, and I respond affirmatively and reassuringly. "It's alright, Gil. It won't hurt."

He nods at me and then nods at Carson, who smiles and pulls down the blankets to my brother's waist. He takes a pair of nurses scissors, making sure that they remain out of Gil's line of sight, and slices through the bandages from just under his left arm down to his hips. Behind my brother's head, he passes me the scissors and indicates that I should do the same. The scissor's blades are sharp, but their outside edge is broad, blunt and flat so as to protect the skin underneath the bandages to be cut off.

When I'm done, I put the scissors in my pocket and nod to Carson, who gently begins to peel the gauze off Gilleasbachan's chest.

For a moment, I'm irrationally afraid that the scans were wrong, that Gilleasbachan's not healed at all, that the blood will stream when the gauze is gone, but it is only an irrational fear. When the bandages are gone and disposed of in a biowaste container, except for the last vestiges of dried blood, the skin on Gilleasbachan's chest is smooth. The surgical scars are indistinguishable from the other scars.

Dr. Beckett listens closely, placing the bell all over Gilleasbachan's torso, before nodding happily and pulling the blankets back over my brother's emaciated form.

"Excellent," he declares, looping the stethoscope around his shoulder's once more and ripping open a nasal canula pouch. He connects it to the oxygen beneath the bed before removing the oxygen mask and gently guiding the canula into place and over my brother's ears. "As soon as we get those arms and legs fixed properly and get ye fed up, ye'll be fit as a fiddle."

Gilleasbachan looks to me for a translation.

"Dr. Beckett says you're healing quite nicely," I tell him. "You should be feeling fine in no time."

"Aye," Carson confirms my words and smiles. "So, how are ye feeling? Ye need anything?"

"Hungry," Gil replies without hesitation and his stomach seconds his words with a loud grumble at being empty.

Carson and I laugh; I silently ask him for permission.

"Well, Ah was going tae put it off 'til tomorrow," he muses, "But Ah cannae think of a good reason tae. Mairghread, perhaps you'd like tae help me get some broth and jello from the Mess?"

I give Carson a curious look, but he nods as if to say, 'Come on."

"Gil, I just need to go give the cooks the recipe for isean and tava bean soup, alright? I'll be right back with something to eat," I reassure him, trying to stem the panic which immediately rises in his eyes. "Look, Mum will stay here with you, keep you company while I'm gone. Right, Mum?" I plead her with my eyes and she smiles as if to say, 'you didn't even need to ask'.

"Okay," he whispers, sounding like a small child and I kiss him lightly on the cheek.

"Right back," I tell him again and follow Carson out of the infirmary. "You never get the food. That's what nurses and friends are for."

Carson grins. "Aye," he says before turning serious again. "But Ah needed to speak tae ye alone for a moment."

Fear bubbles like acid in my chest. "What? What is it?"

"Calm down, lass," he holds up his hands placatingly. "Nothing. Gilleasbachan is healing remarkably quickly, given the circumstances. Ah just wanted ye tae know that, and Ah'm no psychologist now but, Ah think it's because ye went tae him—ye're meeting him where he is and guiding him back."

I'm confused where Carson is going with this. "But?"

"It's not really a 'but'," he replies. "More like a warning and an encouragement. Just because he's healing physically, don't assume he'll heal so quickly psychologically. That said," he smiles warmly, "I'd say that it's because he knows that you love him, despite the company he's kept, that he's healing so nicely."

I wrap Dr. Beckett in a crushing hug before jogging off towards the infirmary.

Hope tempered with wisdom—with these, and love as Carson said, maybe my brother can be made whole again.

End Part I

Part II: Strength and Courage (Yes, new title!)

A/N: Come on guys! Reviews! I'm BEGGING you! Please! And go read Part II, now up!

Oh, and I have no clue if Milky Way replicators really communicate on a different frequency, but it would be a pretty huge coincidence since they were created by different peoples if they had the same bandwidth as it were. So, for purposes of this story, they don't.


End file.
